“And almost the first thing she asked me was what her Christian name was.”
(M’m, “almost”—I wonder what the very first thing was? What is it generally?)
“Of course, I ought to have foreseen that——”
(And hadn’t he? Good gracious! The mapped-out scheme with another flaw in it!)
—“but curiously enough, I’d overlooked it, and wasn’t prepared for it. Now, I couldn’t very well tell my mother the truth, namely, that I did not know. I have never been able to make out whether your usual initials were ‘M’ or ‘N.T.’ I had taken it for ‘N.’ So, on the spur of the moment, I gave her the first girl’s name that began with N that I could think of.”
N or M! Yes! Exactly like the catechism!
For the first time in my life in Still Waters’ presence I laughed aloud. Surely the country air and the rush through it in the car must have gone to my head. Amazed at myself, but even then laughing a little still, I pulled myself together to inquire, “And what did you say to Mrs. Waters when she received my note signed by my real name?”
“Oh!—I said—something or other about ‘Nancy’ being the usual abbreviation for ‘Monica’ in some places!”
“How quick of you!” I retorted—while my Near Oriental self sat back and gasped at my new boldness. He must have wondered at it too; thought it bravado, the recklessness of despair, I suppose.
“Something had to be said! And I am afraid, Miss Trant, that, for the matter in hand, ‘Nancy’ it will have to be. A sort of nom-de-guerre, you know—if you can call it ‘guerre.’”