"Ah! I'd forgotten that. I rather fancied it was you—with Peter."
She summoned the resolution to meet him bluntly.
"Don't do that, please. Don't assume anything of the sort about me."
He went on with unbroken good humor. She had never seen him angry, but the possibility of it, some hidden force suspected in him, quelled her, of late, when she considered the likelihood of rousing it.
"No, of course not," he said, with his habitual geniality. "Why aren't you staying with them?"
She temporized, only from the general certainty that it was unsafe for him to know too much.
"Peter asked me to stay there. His grandmother is very kind. I like her."
"Ah! Have these people money?"
"What people?"
"Electra. Tom's family in general."