“And she’s pretty, you say?”
“Jolly.”
“You know, Whately,” he began, “I’d rather ...” then broke off. “Oh, look here, do tell me.”
Roland shook his head.
“I don’t give away secrets.”
“But why did you tell me anything about it at all?”
“I don’t know; it just cropped up, didn’t it? I thought it might amuse you.”
“Well, I think it’s rotten of you. I shan’t be able to think of anything else until I know.”
Which was, of course, exactly what Roland wanted. He knew how Brewster’s imagination would play with the idea. Betty would become for him strange, wistful, passionate. Four years older than himself he would picture her as the Lilith of old, the eternal temptress. In herself she was nothing. If he had met her in the streets two days earlier he would have hardly noticed her. “A pleasant, country girl,” he would have said, and let her pass out of his thoughts. But now the imagination that colors all things would make her irresistible, and when he met her she would be identified with his dream.