“You knew him before, then?” She felt the blood creeping to her forehead, and reached out for a painted hand-screen that she might seem to hold between her eyes and the fire.
Landers reflected. “Oh, yes. I’ve run across him now and then. I rather fancy he’s been mixed up in this too; stirring the brew with the others. That’s my impression.”
“Yes.—I wonder why,” said Kate suddenly.
Landers smiled a little, though his brows continued to jut. “To please Anne, perhaps.”
“Anne—Anne?”
The name, after she had uttered it, continued to ring on between them, and she leaned back, pressing the screen against her closed lids. “Why?” she managed to question.
“Well—a good many people have wanted to please Anne, first and last. I simply conjectured that Fenno might be among them.”
“Oh, no; I’m sure you’re quite wrong. I wonder—.” She hesitated, and then went on with a rush: “The fact is, I wonder you haven’t noticed that he and Lilla—”
Landers sat up and flung his cigar-end into the embers. “Fenno and Lilla? By Jove—you might be right. I hadn’t thought of it—”
“Well, I have; I’ve met them together; when they didn’t expect to be met—.” She hurried it out with a kind of violence. Her heart was beating to suffocation; she had to utter her suspicion, to give it life and substance.