“Oh, I know. If you came into my room you didn’t make a sound. You arranged that with Mabel. But haven’t you heard that the blind develop an extra sense?”
“Not as quickly as that—or with that precision.” She brightened with a new thought. “If your extra sense told you I was there, why didn’t you speak to me?”
“Suppose I said that I respected your incognita? If you didn’t want to speak to me it must have been for a reason. I couldn’t ignore that.”
Whir-r-r! Z-z-z! P-ff!
A shell from the submarine struck the water somewhere near us, though all we saw was a column of white spume on the port side of the ship, while we were on the starboard.
She ignored even this. Standing erect, with her hands in the pockets of her ulster, with no feature to betray her but her eyes, she surmised, calmly, “Some of the other nurses or one of the patients must have given you a hint.”
“None of them ever pronounced your name in my hearing.”
“Then I give up guessing!” she said, with a touch of impatience.
“Which is what I can’t do.”
“But what have you to guess at?”