Nancy covered her face. "Oh!" she said, "have you thought that?"
"Oh!" he said, "have you done that?" And there was silence.
The Captain passed and remarked on the fine weather, adding that they would arrive in less than an hour. Then he went by.
"I liked your first letter—poor little truthful letter on the cheap paper. You said you were the wrong girl. You were dressed in brown. I could see you in your shabby brown dress—I knew it must be shabby—and I liked the idea of doing something unexpected with a little money. Then I was amused at your letter saying you were not Miss Brown. After that the lies began."
Nancy quivered. The houses of Quarto were coming into sight; the red hotel of Quinto was gliding past.
"How could you think that I would believe in the old-rose curtains in the 300's of East 82nd Street, I who have lived five or six years in New York? That showed me that you were a foreigner, or you would have known that street numbers in New York tell their own tale. Then your letters told me that you were a fanciful creature, and they told me that you were lonely, or you would not have found time to write so much—a cultivated, little fibber, who quoted every poet under the sun, especially the out-of-the-way ones. Then, when I found out that you had a child—"
"Oh!" gasped Nancy, and the tears welled over. "You know about Anne-Marie!"
"I know about Anne-Marie. I even have a picture of her." He unbuttoned his coat, and drew out his pocket-book, and from it a little snapshot photograph, which he handed to Nancy. It was herself and Anne-Marie in front of a toy-shop. They were in the act of turning from it, and Anne-Marie's foot was lifted in the air. They were both laughing, and neither of them looking their best.
"Oh, but that's hideous of her," said Nancy. "She is quite different from that."
He smiled, and put the picture back into his pocket-book, and the pocket-book into his breast-pocket.