The next morning he looked up Littlemore, from whom he had a standing invitation to breakfast, and who, as usual, was smoking a cigar and turning over a dozen newspapers. Littlemore had a large apartment and an accomplished cook; he got up late and wandered about his rooms all the morning, stopping from time to time to look out of his windows, which overhung the Place de la Madeleine. They had not been seated many minutes at breakfast when the visitor mentioned that Mrs. Headway was about to be abandoned by her friend, who was going to Cannes. But once more he was to feel how little he might ever enlighten this comrade. “He came last night to bid me good-bye,” Littlemore said. Again Waterville wondered. “Very civil of him, then, all of a sudden.” “He didn’t come from civility—he came from curiosity. Having dined here he had a pretext for calling.” “I hope his curiosity was satisfied,” our young man generously dropped. “Well, I suspect not. He sat here some time, but we talked only about what he didn’t want to know.” “And what _did_ he want to know?” “Whether I know anything against Nancy Beck.” Waterville stared. “Did he call her Nancy Beck?” “We never mentioned her; but I saw what he was after and that he quite yearned to lead up to her. I wouldn’t do it.” “Ah, poor man!” Waterville sighed. “I don’t see why you pity him,” said Littlemore. “Mrs. Beck’s admirers were never pitied.” “Well, of course he wants to marry her.” “Let him do it then. I’ve nothing to say to it.” “He believes there’s something about her, somewhere in time or space, that may make a pretty big mouthful.” “Let him leave it alone then.” “How can he if he’s really hit?”—Waterville spoke as from sad experience. “Ah, my dear fellow, he must settle it himself. He has no right at any rate to put me such a question. There was a moment, just as he was going, when he had it on his tongue’s end. He stood there in the doorway, he couldn’t leave me—he was going to plump out with it. He looked at me straight, and I looked straight at him; we remained that way for almost a minute. Then he decided not, on the whole, to risk it and took himself off.” Waterville assisted at this passage with intense interest. “And if he had asked you, what would you have said?” “What do you think?” “Well, I suppose you’d have said that his question wasn’t fair.” “That would have been tantamount to admitting the worst.” “Yes,” Waterville brooded again, “you couldn’t do that. On the other hand if he had put it to you on your honour whether she’s a woman to marry it would have been very awkward.” “Awkward enough. Luckily he has no business to put things to me on my honour. Moreover, nothing has passed between us to give him the right to ask me _any_ questions about Mrs. Headway. As she’s a great friend of mine he can’t pretend to expect me to give confidential information.”