The Rev. and Mrs. Needham came out on to the porch, he preceding her through the doorway; there was just the faintest evidence of her shoving him on a little.
Her whispered "Yes, Alf, yes!" might, of course, represent an exclamation apropos of almost anything. For instance, the words might form the tail-end of almost any sort of domestic conversation—or perhaps a talk about holding a Sunday School rally in the fall. The incomplete phrase might, in one's imagination, expand itself into something like this: "Yes, we really must. Nothing like a well-planned rally to stir up the interest of the young folks. Yes, Alf, yes!" But as a matter of fact, Mrs. Needham and her husband had not been discussing any such matters. The authentic conversation, to go back a little, which had just antedated egress from the cottage living room, ran, in fact, as follows:
"Alf, I do want you two to get better acquainted!"
"What?"
"More intimate, and not...."
"Well, Anna?"
"Not quite so—so stiff, somehow...."
"H'm-m-m!"
"Alf, she's so good-hearted. If it's true she has changed any way, who knows but you might have an influence ...?"