“I’m imagining.”
“As I was saying, you’re extremely fascinating. Everything’s in your favor for making a happy and successful marriage, except one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“You have no parents. Now parents are a kind of passport. Seeing that you haven’t any, you’ve got to be more circumspect than other girls. It has come to my ears that for the past two months you’ve been seen every day with one young gentleman. People are beginning to talk about it. Since you don’t intend to marry him, you ought to drop him until you are married.”
“Who says I don’t intend to marry him?”
She took me by the shoulders and drew me to her. The afterglow had faded from the garden. I could not see her face distinctly, but it seemed to me that that old expression of hungry wistfulness was coming back. I heard men enter the room overhead. A bar of light, like a golden streamer, fluttered and fell across the lawn. A piano struck up, playing Mr. Dooley. The dusk was humanized and robbed of its austerity. Her hands trembled on my shoulders. For a second time I doubted the genuineness of her playacting. I hurried on.
“But if you did want to marry him it would make no difference. He’s pledged to another woman.”
Her hands fell away. When she spoke it was gravely and with effort. “You didn’t tell me. You said you weren’t engaged when I asked you.”
“Neither am I, nor likely to be.”
“Why not?”