“Say ‘she’ or ‘her,’” he begged. “I feel better about her when she’s a pronoun!”
“She must have followed?” repeated Bobbie in horror. “Then she is here! She—she isn’t Aunt Lizzie by any chance?”
“She is Aunt Lizzie! Aunt Lizzie! Oh, Bobbie, isn’t this the most awful thing that ever happened? What am I going to do? I can’t leave the house——”
“But why?” asked Bobbie, thunderstruck.
No man stood less in need of cross-examination at that moment than Gordon. He had hopes that Bobbie, with his curious insight into human affairs, would accept the situation without demanding analysis.
“I can’t understand,” began Bobbie. “You’ve only to explain to Diana——”
Gordon’s laugh was harsh. Bobbie had heard him laugh once before like that—when he was recovering from gas after having a tooth out.
“I haven’t told you the worst,” said Gordon gloomily. “Diana found me here and accused me of being Double Dan. I was struck dumb. The idea was so grotesque that I could not find words to answer her. Suppose somebody came to you in the street and accused you of murder, what would you say? Something amusing? I haven’t the gift of persiflage. I could have got out of it even then, but that infernal woman made her appearance and hung round my neck! In a sense she was justified. Diana threatened to shoot her. A woman doesn’t like that. What was I to do? My dilemma was a terrible one! I had the alternative of admitting that I was Double Dan, impersonator and teller of plausible stories, or of telling the unbelievable truth, which means that she would have thought that I was engaged in a vulgar affair with Heloise.”
This argument seemed very sound to Bobbie.
“Who called her Aunt Lizzie?” he asked. He might have saved himself the trouble.