“Well—I suppose she’s gone away,” continued Vyse, rebuilding his countenance rapidly.
“Yes; and in a community numbering perhaps a hundred and seventy-five souls, including the dogs and chickens, the local post-office is so ignorant of her movements that my letter has to be sent to the Dead Letter Office.”
Vyse meditated on this; then he laughed in turn. “After all, the same thing happened to me—with ‘Hester Macklin,’ I mean,” he recalled sheepishly.
“Just so,” said Betton, bringing down his clenched fist on the table. “ Just so,” he repeated, in italics.
He caught his secretary’s glance, and held it with his own for a moment. Then he dropped it as, in pity, one releases something scared and squirming.
“The very day my letter was returned from Swazee Springs she wrote me this from there,” he said, holding up the last Florida missive.
“Ha! That’s funny,” said Vyse, with a damp forehead.
“Yes, it’s funny; it’s funny,” said Betton. He leaned back, his hands in his pockets, staring up at the ceiling, and noticing a crack in the cornice. Vyse, at the corner of the writing-table, waited.
“Shall I get to work?” he began, after a silence measurable by minutes. Betton’s gaze descended from the cornice.
“I’ve got your seat, haven’t I?” he said, rising and moving away from the table.