"I don't wonder you're surprised!" agreed Mrs. Allison.
"Why—I—I'm—not surprised at all!" prevaricated Tutt, at the same time groping for his silk handkerchief. "You don't mean to say you've got a case against this man Oaklander!"
"I have indeed!" she retorted with firmly compressed lips. "That is, if it is what you call a case for a man to promise to marry a woman and then in the end refuse to do so."
"Of course it is!" answered Tutt. "But why on earth wouldn't he?"
"He found out I had been divorced," she explained. "Up to that time everything had been lovely. You see he thought I was a widow."
"Ah!"
Mr. Tutt experienced another pang of resentment against mankind in general.
"I had a leading part in one of the season's successes on Broadway," she continued miserably. "But when Mr. Oaklander promised to marry me I left the stage; and now—I have nothing!"
"Poor child!" sighed Tutt.
He would have liked to take her in his arms and comfort her, but he always kept the door into the outer office open on principle.