“I was. But my aunt went out to the country, so I moved over here. Like it better.”
“I see.”
Suddenly a thought came to Mary Louise: That woman whom she had seen in the empty house—her face looked like Pauline’s aunt! That was the person she had reminded her of!
“Is your aunt’s place at Center Square?” she inquired.
Mary Louise thought she saw Pauline start at the question, but she answered it carelessly enough. “It’s not in any town,” she said. “Just in the country.... Well, I’ll be seein’ you.” She started away.
“Wait a minute,” begged Mary Louise. “Did you girls ever meet a girl named Margaret Detweiler, from Riverside? I am trying to find her for her grandmother.”
“Margaret Detweiler—yes——” began Miss Jackson.
But Pauline interrupted her. “You’re thinking of Margaret Lyla, Blondie,” she corrected. “We don’t know any Margaret Detweiler.”
“That’s right,” agreed the other girl, in obvious confusion.
Mary Louise sighed: she had probably been mistaken. And it was all so mixed up, anyhow. Her memory of the night before, of those two faces at the window, was already growing vague.