Won't you smoke?'
'No, thanks.'
'You'll feel better if you do.'
'I couldn't.'
A bee had flown in through the open window. She followed it with
her eye as it blundered about the room. It flew out again into the
sunshine. She turned to Bill again.
'They were supposed to be words of consolation,' she said.
Bill said nothing.
'Nutty, you see, has his own peculiar way of looking at things,
and it didn't occur to him that I might have promised to marry you
because I loved you. He took it for granted that I had done it to
save the Boyd home. He has been very anxious from the first that I
should marry you. I think that that must have been why he asked
you down here. He found out in New York, you know, who you were.
Someone you met at supper recognized you, and told Nutty. So, as
far as that is concerned, the girl you were speaking to at the
gate last night was right.'
He started. 'You heard her?'
'I couldn't help it. She meant me to hear. She was raising her
voice quite unnecessarily if she did not mean to include me in the
conversation. I had gone in to find Nutty, and he was out, and I
was coming back to you. That's how I was there. You didn't see me
because your back was turned. She saw me.'
Bill met her eyes. 'You don't ask who she was?'
'It doesn't matter who she was.
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