"Only," she went on, "that isn't worth while now."
A hint in her tone impelled me to insist.
"It may be. You don't know. Please tell me what it was."
"But what's the use? It was only something Ethel Rossiter said—and she was wrong."
"What makes you so sure she was wrong?"
"Because I am. I can see." She added, reluctantly, "Ethel thought there was some one—some one besides Hugh—"
"And what if there was?"
Though startled by the challenge, she stood her ground.
"I don't believe in people making each other any more unhappy than they can help, do you?" She had a habit of screwing up her small gray-green eyes into two glimmering little slits of light, with an effect of shyness showing through amusement and diablerie. "We're both girls, aren't we? I'm twenty, and you can't be much older. And so I thought—that is, I thought at first—that if you had any one else in mind, there'd be no use in our making each other miserable—but I see you haven't; and so—"
"And so," I laughed, nervously, "the race must be to the swift and the battle to the strong. Is that it?"