“I didn’t say she said anything else,” Mrs. Dodge returned, primly. “The rest wasn’t so important, anyhow, and she was speaking in a low voice. I thought the rest of it was, ‘Rosemary, that’s for remembrance.’ I couldn’t be sure because I didn’t hear it distinctly.”
“But you did distinctly hear her call him ‘darling’?”
“What I heard distinctly,” Mrs. Dodge replied, “I heard distinctly.”
“So what Mrs. Leslie Braithwaite said to the chauffeur was this: ‘Rosemary, that’s for remembrance, darling’?”
“You must draw your own conclusions,” she advised him, severely.
“I do—rather!” he returned, and in a marvelling tone slowly pronounced their neighbour’s name, “Mrs. Leslie Braithwaite! Of all the women in the world, Mrs. Leslie Braithwaite! And when you rose up, and she saw you, she just went all to pieces and didn’t say a word?”
“I told you.”
“What did the handsome chauffeur do?”
“Just stood there.”
“It’s beyond anything!” Mr. Dodge’s amazement was not abated;—he shook his head and uttered groaning sounds of pessimistic wonderment. “I suppose the true meaning of the saying, ‘It’s the unexpected that happens,’ is that life is always teaching us to accept the incredible. How long ago was it?”