"When you went and hid yourself with Mr. Delamayn in that snug corner
there. I saw you lead the way in, while I was at work on Lady Lundie's
odious dinner-invitations."

"Oh! you call that being at work, do you? I wonder whether there was
ever a woman yet who could give the whole of her mind to any earthly
thing that she had to do?"

"Never mind the women! What subject in common could you and Mr. Delamayn
possibly have to talk about? And why do I see a wrinkle between your
eyebrows, now you have done with him?--a wrinkle which certainly wasn't
there before you had that private conference together?"

Before answering, Sir Patrick considered whether he should take Blanche
into his confidence or not. The attempt to identify Geoffrey's unnamed
"lady," which he was determined to make, would lead him to Craig Fernie,
and would no doubt end in obliging him to address himself to Anne.
Blanche's intimate knowledge of her friend might unquestionably be made
useful to him under these circumstances; and Blanche's discretion was
to be trusted in any matter in which Miss Silvester's interests were
concerned. On the other hand, caution was imperatively necessary, in
the present imperfect state of his information--and caution, in Sir
Patrick's mind, carried the day. He decided to wait and see what came
first of his investigation at the inn.

"Mr. Delamayn consulted me on a dry point of law, in which a friend of
his was interested," said Sir Patrick. "You have wasted your curiosity,
my dear, on a subject totally unworthy of a lady's notice."