He looked into the hot eyes with an expression half-tender in his own.
"Tell me!" breathed Dinah.
"Really? Well, prepare for a nasty shock! To Rose de Vigne!"
"To Rose!" Indignation gave place to bewilderment in Dinah's eyes.
"Even so; to Rose. She guessed the truth, and he frankly admitted she was right, but gave her to understand that as he hadn't a chance in the world, you were never to know. I am telling you the truth, Dinah. You needn't look so incredulous. She naturally considered that he was not treating you very fairly and said so. But--" he raised his shoulders slightly--"you know Scott. Mules can't compete with him when he has made up his mind to a thing. He gracefully put an end to the discussion and doubtless he has buried the whole subject in a neat little corner of his heart where no one can ever tumble over it, and resigned himself to a lonely old age. Now, Dinah, I am going to give you the soundest piece of advice I have ever given anyone. If you are wise, you will dig it up before the moss grows, bring it into the air and call it back to life. It is the greatest desire of Isabel's heart to see you two happy together. She told me so only to-day. And I am beginning to think that I wish it too."
His look was wholly kind as he uttered the last words. He held her hand in the close grip of a friend.
"Don't let that insane humility of his be his ruin!" he urged. "He's a fool. I've always said so. But his foolishness is the sort that attacks only the great. Once let him know you care, and he'll be falling over himself to propose."
"Oh, don't!" Dinah begged, and her voice sounded chill and yet somehow piteous. "I couldn't--ever--marry him. I told him so--only the other day."
"What? He proposed, did he?" Sheer amazement sounded in Eustace's voice.
Dinah was not looking at him any longer. She sat rather huddled in her chair, as if a cold wind had caught her.
"Yes," she said in the same small, uneven voice. "He proposed. He didn't make love to me. In fact he--promised that he never would. But he thought--yes, that was it--he thought that presently I should be lonely, and he wanted me to know that he was willing to protect me."
"What a fool!" Eustace said. "And so you refused him! I don't wonder. I should have pitched something at him if I'd been you."