Norman rose from the log. He chucked the butt of his cigarette away. He looked directly, rather searchingly, at MacRae.
"Really, I don't know," he said in a flat, expressionless. Then he walked on.
MacRae watched him pass out of sight among the thickets. Young Gower had succeeded in dispelling the passive contentment of basking in the sun. He had managed to start buzzing trains of not too agreeable reflection. MacRae got to his feet before long and tramped back around the Cove's head. He had known, of course, that the Gowers still made more or less use of their summer cottage. But he had not come in personal contact with any of them since the night Betty had given him that new, disturbing angle from which to view her. He had avoided her purposely. Now he was afflicted with a sudden restlessness, a desire for other voices and faces besides his own, and so, as he was in the habit of doing when such a mood seized him, he went on to Peter Ferrara's house.
He walked in through a wide-open door, unannounced by aught save his footsteps, as he was accustomed to do, and he found Dolly Ferrara and Betty Gower laughing and chatting familiarly in the kitchen over teacups and little cakes.
"Oh, I beg pardon," said he. "I didn't know you were entertaining."
"I don't entertain, and you know it," Dolly laughed. "Come down from that lofty altitude and I'll give you a cup of tea."
"Mr. MacRae, being an aviator of some note," Betty put in, "probably finds himself at home in the high altitudes."
"Do I seem to be up in the air?" MacRae inquired dryly. "I shall try to come down behind my own lines, and not in enemy territory."
"You might have to make a forced landing," Dolly remarked.
Her great dusky eyes rested upon him with a singular quality of speculation. MacRae wondered if those two had been talking about him, and why.