"That happened to be your observation, and not interesting," she answered. "You found your cigarettes?"
"You see I'm smoking," he smiled.
"And temporizing," she drily observed. "Really, Mr. McElroy, the truth is not in you!"
"I beg your pardon?" he stiffened slightly.
"I am saying the truth is not in you," she directly answered. "When you first came here tonight, you took a cigarette from your case and lighted it."
"I should never have been so careless if something weren't on my mind," he laughed now. "The truth—the true truth—is that I needed a drink of wicked whiskey. Forgive me?"
"I might not find it so difficult to forgive if, in the future, you either stop trying to deceive me or talking to me; I really don't care which!"
"I say!" he looked up in surprise. "That's pretty straight talk! But it may be a worth-while thing for you to remember that a place does exist where men can't answer every question put to them, and I very much doubt your right to assume so much simply because I choose to keep a few of my affairs to myself. When I first came in here you asked what had happened. That was sympathetic, and I appreciated it; but it was something I couldn't answer, and told you so. You may remember that you seemed to resent that. Your manner was an invitation for me to make up some sort of a fairy-tale to appease your curiosity; and if I had, and you'd found it out, you would just as readily have called me a what's-his-name. You're illogical. You don't seem to share my sense of proportion, at any rate. I wanted a drink—I needed a drink; and I had every right in the world to take it, providing I didn't offend anyone. But it would have offended you—so why announce my intention? If I'm put in a position where some sort of explanation is demanded, and the truth can't in fairness be told, I'm thrown back on the resort which your own sex has taught me—that delectable sex of sweet poisons and silent stilettoes, versatile in the art of lying; queens of the art, indeed—though innocent in it. And here's another plain truth: I'd love to be frank with you, and tell you everything in the world I can, because I think you are square with lots of things which most women side-step. I can't just express it, but you're broadminded and charitable, and smash right out from the shoulder at a thing as if you didn't have skirts on. I don't put it very well, but you know what I mean!"
She thought he did not put it very well, but she knew he put it sincerely, and her reply held a vein of banter which he might not have been expecting just then:
"Perhaps you'll begin by telling about your mysterious dryad in the Forest of Arden!"