“My friend?”
“Yes.”
“He isn’t my friend.”
“Oh.”
“What made you think—”
“Merely that he seemed to be when you came on board.”
“You mean because he let me get into my room before the crowd came?”
“Well, that was real friendliness, but it wasn’t what I meant.”
“What did you mean?”
“Oh, I only thought, since you called him by his Christian name, he might be a friend.” The tone conveyed the widest latitude—the most varied experience of other women’s vagaries, or their weakness.