“You saw the sort of man he was. Touchy, excitable, easily put off! I had to be always on my guard with him. So that when I heard that he—this important person to me, Miss Trant—seemed inclined to do me the honour of selecting me, not only as a business-ally, but also—” He paused and looked at me. Of course I was attending, if that was what he meant! —“also as a possible son-in-law, what was I to do?” I said nothing. Of course he could do nothing but accept such a bride with enthusiasm; but why apologize to _me_? “I realized,” he went on, “that I might offend him to the verge of breaking off the other deal. I explained to you at our first interview here that I’d _had_ no intention of getting married?” (Had. Then he’d fallen in love with her later.) “Last Easter, which we spent at Dinard with the Charriers,” he went on, “I—we all were on the most friendly terms with Mademoiselle Charrier—” I clenched my hands together; they were feeling, on that August afternoon, cold as ice. —“And she was soon quite confidential to _me_,” continued the Governor. “Told me lots of things about herself, just like a child—” (A minx! That assumed frankness!) —“told me, even, of her own understanding with a young airman who was over there then. A secret from her people—you know what these French parents are—but I don’t suppose it’s a secret any longer now this is all up.” (Ah, no! Odette Charrier wouldn’t find it hard to jilt an airman or an archangel—for him!) “It was she herself who told me, perfectly candidly, of her father’s idea of the offer of her hand to me. You know that rum French way they have—pretty awkward, that,” went on the Governor, beginning to speak almost as rapidly as for that dictation he used to gabble off to me. “I was in a tight corner then! There was the risk of turning a possible friend—and such a powerful one!—into a certain enemy. I knew how offended he’d be by a refusal that _might_ seem due to reluctance! Then there was the young lady to consider—What’s the matter, don’t you follow me?” “No—I don’t understand,” I made myself say quite coherently, “what you mean by ‘refusal.’” “Well, _she_ didn’t want to marry me! She’d got this aviator-chap. _I_ didn’t want to marry anybody—then.” (_Then._ Was he going to inflict upon me the whole of their love-story?) “And I could only forestall the proposal she told me he meant to make by showing her father some really tangible proof that I was out of the question. You see?” “Yes,” I said slowly. “_I_ was—a nominal _fiancée_ was to be the tangible proof.”