“No, he hadn’t. Well, six years later, she became engaged to another man. I fancy she must have told him some stories about her age.”
“It’s always better to understate rather than overstate a case,” said the blue-eyed girl.
“So my old nurse used to say. Well, when she was about to be married, her old lover sent her a beautiful present, and with it an envelope addressed to her fiancé.”
“Which she should have opened herself,” said the president, promptly.
“He happened to be present when the box was opened, dear. The envelope contained the photograph taken seven years before—”
“Why didn’t she say that—”
“It was a picture of her elder sister? She did, dear. What really caused the trouble was her own name, and the date on the back of it, coupled with the statement that it was taken on her twenty-second birthday!”
“Oh, my goodness, how sly men are?” said the president. “And to think that never, as long as she lived, could that girl tell him what she really thought of him!”
“I know. She used to say that she sometimes regretted that she hadn’t married him.”
“Oh, well, he is probably married to somebody else, by this time, anyhow,” said the president, “though I doubt if his wife would fully appreciate the enormity of his behavior, since it was toward another woman.”