"Certainly not!" she retorted. "Do you think that I would talk about such a delicate matter before others?" "Oh no; I suppose not. But you could look wise and foolish at the same time when Maxwell's name was mentioned, with a coy and kittenish air which would suggest more than ten volumes of Mary Jane Holmes." "You are not very sympathetic, Mrs. Burke, when I am in deep trouble. I want your help, not ridicule and abuse." "Well, I am sorry for you, Virginia, in more ways than one. But really I'd like to know what reason you have to think that Donald Maxwell was ever in love with you; I suppose that's what you mean." Virginia blushed deeply, as became a gentle maiden of her tender years, and replied: "Oh, it is not a question of things which one can easily define. Love is vocal without words, you know." "Hm! You don't mean that he made love to you and proposed to you through a phonograph? You know I had some sort of idea that love that was all wool, and a yard wide, and meant business, usually got vocal at times." "But Mr. Maxwell and I were thrown together in such an intimate way in parish work, you know." "Which did the throwing?" "You don't for one moment suppose that I would intrude myself, or press myself on his attention, do you?" "Oh my gracious, no! He is not the kind of a man to be easily impressed. He may have seen a girl or two before he met you; of course I mean just incidentally, as it were. Now, Virginia Bascom, allow me to ask you one or two plain questions. Did he ever ask you to marry him?" "No, not in so many words." "Did he ever give you any plain indication that he wanted to marry you? Did he ever play the mandolin under your window at midnight? Did he ever steal one of your gloves, or beg for a rose out of your bouquet, or turn the gas out when he called?" "No, but one night he sat on the sofa with me and told me that I was a great assistance to him in his parish work, and that he felt greatly indebted to me." "Hm! That's certainly rather pronounced, isn't it? Did you call your father, or rise hastily and leave the room, or what did you do?" "Well, of course it was not a proposal, but the way he did it was very suggestive, and calculated to give a wrong impression, especially as he had his arm on the back of the sofa behind me." "Maybe he was makin' love to the sofa. Didn't you know that Donald Maxwell was engaged to be married before he ever set foot in Durford?" "Good gracious, no! What are you talking about?" "Well, he certainly was, for keeps." "Then he had no business to pose as a free man, if he were engaged. It is dreadful to have to lose faith in one's rector. It is next to losing faith in--in----"