“He looks like that,” said Bobbie. “The chrysanthemum in his buttonhole will cheer her immensely. Is the faithful Trenter in the swindle too?”
“I don’t know what you mean by ‘swindle,’” said Gordon loudly. “I wish I hadn’t told you anything about it!”
“You wouldn’t, only you wanted somebody to stand by you in case anything went wrong. That is, anything but you.”
“I shall not go wrong, believe me!”
“I don’t,” said Bobbie. And then, hastily: “At least, I do, but nobody else would.”
“You can’t understand these—it’s a hateful word, but there is no better—affinities,” said Gordon, “these understandings and yearnings for something which—which—well, somebody else can’t give you. Some magic that draws a man’s confidence and kills all sense of time and obligation.”
Bobbie nodded wisely.
“I know—a woman.”
Gordon stood erect.