I asked, with a casual intonation:
"How's Stroud?"
Fire flashed right through the thickness of the veil, but she answered in the tone I had taken:
"I don't know. I haven't seen him since—since that girl—"
"She's married."
"Oh, is she? I hope it's to some one—"
"It's to some one as true-blue as she."
"She is true-blue, Billy. I see that now. She—she must be to have wanted to do what she did for ... a woman like me, who—"
She took a step or two toward one of the cases, where she pretended to examine the luster of a great Moorish plaque.
"She's an erratic little thing," I said, finding it easier to talk of a third person rather than of ourselves, "all pluck, and high spirit, and good heart, harum-scarum, and yet a great deal wiser than you'd think."