"It's rather exacting work," thought Rosalind, "this business of arriving at unconventional hours and then making believe that everything was thoroughly conventional. If they don't stop talking about clues I shall go mad."
If there was one thing that particularly bored Rosalind it was discussion of a topic plunged into with undisguised relish by Mrs. Witherbee, when that good lady joined her in the garden and deftly maneuvered her beyond the hearing of the others.
"Is it seventeen now, my dear, or eighteen?" asked Mrs. Witherbee with a knowing little chuckle.
"Seventeen—or eighteen?" puzzled Rosalind. "I don't understand."
She did, however, because Mrs. Witherbee always approached the subject from the numerical angle.
"You know very well, my dear. Do not pretend. I thought the last one was the seventeenth, but Gertrude is sure he was the eighteenth. It was Mr. Williams, wasn't it?"
"Oh, please!" protested Rosalind.
"Oh, please?" echoed Mrs. Witherbee, hugging Rosalind's arm. "Oh, shucks, you mean! Why shouldn't we talk about it? Everybody else who knows you talks about it. Why shouldn't I?"
"But—but it's so intimately my own affair," said Rosalind, annoyed.
"It's more than your affair, dear. It's the affair of seventeen or eighteen perfectly nice young men—I wish to goodness I could remember the exact count! Seventeen or eighteen eligible men—all ready to marry you if you say the word."