"Why do you talk like that?" he said. "You don't think—you can't think it was my fault?"
"Your fault! What?"
"Why, your father finding us and—"
"Oh, that!" she said lightly. "Oh, I had forgotten that! Ridiculous, wasn't it? No, I mean your kindness in giving so many hours to teaching a perfect duffer. Well, now I've seen you and said what I had to say, I think I'll go back."
"No, don't go," he said. "I want to know—oh, all sorts of things! I can see your aunt from afar, and fly if she approaches."
"You don't suppose," said Betty, opening her eyes at him, "that I shan't tell her I've seen you?"
He had supposed it, and cursed his clumsiness.
"Ah, I see," she went on, "you think I should deceive my aunt now because I deceived my step-father in the Spring. But I was a child then,—and besides, I'm fond of my aunt."
"Did you know that she came to see me?"
"Of course. You seem to think we live in an atmosphere of deceit, Mr. Vernon."