“Because you care about him.”
“Oh, do I?”
And then, for no more reason than that—but you’d have understood it, had you heard her voice—I felt better yet. I switched the subject back to business.
“I’ve accumulated some hand baggage,” I mentioned.
“Yes. Don’t you want it?”
“That part’s all right,” I said. “But what to do with it? It’s not a gift, I take it.”
“No.”
“I see. You expect a search. Meanwhile I’m to have the bag and then give it back to you.”
She nodded; and there she proved she knew I was not in the net; for instead of asking anything final, one way or the other, she merely suggested, “Think it over a while, won’t you?”
I promised and got up; for she’d put in that a hint of dismissal. Then I remembered Dibley. After being in her compartment all this time, I had to bring to him something more tellable than our talk so far.