"Why, I—should love it, of course," she stammered, "if you're really sure that you——"
"Of course I'm sure," I cut her short. "What I'm beginning to wonder is, how I ever got on without you!"
She laughed.
"You've known me only three days and a half! And——"
"Long enough to be sure that you're absolutely IT," said I. "If already you seem to me indispensable, how could Robert Lorillard have made up his mind to part with you, after months?"
I didn't mean to be cruel or inquisitorial. The words sprang out—spoke themselves. But I could have boxed my own ears when I saw their effect on the girl. She grew red, then white, and tears gushed to her eyes. They didn't fall, because she was afraid to wink, and stared me steadily in the face, hoping the salt lake might safely soak back. All the same I saw that I'd struck a hard blow.
"Captain Lorillard was very nice, and really sorry in a way to lose me, I think," she replied, rather primly. "But he told you, didn't he, that he was going away?"
"Oh, of course! Stupid of me to forget for a minute," I mumbled, earnestly peeling a plum, so that she might have time to dispose of those tears without absorbing them. I was more certain than ever that here was a "story" in the broken connection between Joyce Arnold and Robert Lorillard: that if he were really leaving home it was for a reason which concerned her.
It wasn't all curiosity which made me rack my brain with mental questions. It was partly old admiration for Robert and new affection for his late secretary. "Why should he want to get rid of such a girl?" I asked myself, as at last I ate the plum.
The fruit was more easily swallowed than the idea that he hadn't wanted Joyce Arnold to go on working for him. It wouldn't be human for man or woman—especially man—not to want her. But—well—I tried to put the thought aside for the moment, in order to wrestle with it when those eyes of hers could no longer read my mind.