“I was merely passing through,” said I.
“She has an enormous admiration for you,” continued he. “She says you have imagination—which means that she thinks you in the small class. You know the world divides into sheep and goats on imagination, with the mass in the have-not class. I believe it’s the true distinction between House of Have and House of Have-not.”
“She is well?” said I.
“Always. She knows how to take care of herself. I never knew a woman so sensible—and sensible means the reverse of what it’s usually supposed to mean when applied to a woman.”
This hardly sounded like an engaged man talking of his fiancée. On the other hand, Beechman was a peculiar chap.
“Does she still live in the country?”
“Just now—yes. Last winter she kept house for Bob in New York.”
But you will not be interested in how I drew from him bit by bit a hundred details of her life, stories of what she had said and done. I saw Beechman several hours every day until he left us at Seattle. Alternately I thought him merely her closest man friend and her accepted lover. At times I thought he was not quite sure, himself, in which position he stood. When we were having our last talk together I nerved myself and said:
“I heard in London that she was to be married.”
I felt him drawing in and shutting all doors and windows.