Edith was very cheerful on the way home. She had had a long talk with Mrs. Millicent, promised her Derrick’s last book, found they had mutual friends, and in general enjoyed herself. It was a relief to be with some one professedly practical. Also she was beginning to entertain a shrewd suspicion that her brother was rather more than interested in Jean and turned the conversation in that direction before long. She chatted away, swinging her stick and feeling more at peace with herself than for some time past.
“I don’t think they’ll stay there very long,” she hazarded. “It’s too lonely. Mrs. Millicent spoke of France for the summer and feels that Jean should have a change. It’s no place for a girl like that.”
“Oh!” said Derrick uncomfortably.
“From what I gathered she blames herself for having stayed there at all. It seems she wanted to move away altogether, but Jean wouldn’t have it. She’s worried about the child and says that she cannot shake the dreadful thing off, which isn’t a healthy state of affairs at that age. You two hit it off very well, Jack, from what I saw. You had a regular conference.”
He laughed. “Did we?”
“Didn’t you? You ought to know. I never realized fully before what a variety of interests you seem to demand. First you come into the country to write a novel—and, by the way, you’ll notice I’ve said nothing about the novel recently—then you switch off to a murder case, and I haven’t mentioned that either recently, and the latest development is a perfectly new young woman of undoubted charm, of whom I begin to have suspicions.”
“And of whom perhaps you won’t say anything at all,” he parried.
Edith nodded. “Nothing could arouse feminine intuition more than that remark. However, she’s awfully attractive.”
Derrick grinned. “Suppose we leave it at that.”
“All right, brother, but just in case my feminine intuition happens to be right, I wouldn’t take Miss Millicent too seriously.”