“Oh, did you notice him, too?” Kate asked, surprised. “And in the club? I missed him there. How did he get in?”
“He was talking to the telephone girl and watching us while we had lunch. I saw through the door. He acted like a detective, or something. I was going to point him out to you, and then every time I got interested in what we were saying and forgot. What do you suppose he was doing?”
Kate was suddenly embarrassed. She knew very well what he was doing, but of course she was bound not to tell.
“He acted like a detective,” Elsie said, musingly. “Just exactly the way they act in books.”
“Yes. And we might have been thieves, or something,” Kate took it up.
But at her words Elsie stiffened. Although Kate at the minute was not looking at her she felt the stiffening. And when they were established in their coach and Kate did turn to look at Elsie she saw at once that the comrade had vanished again! What had she done? And how could she bear it after this perfect day? Oh, no, it was not to be borne. Things couldn’t happen like that. She leaned toward Elsie and spoke quickly, urgently but softly.
“Don’t get icy again,” she pleaded. “If I’ve offended you, I truly don’t know how. And we’ve had such a splendid day of it. Deep down everything seems to be all right with us. It’s only on top things keep going wrong. Don’t look like that. Don’t.”
But Elsie did not respond to Kate’s pleading. She kept on looking “like that” and merely commented coldly, “You do say such queer things. I don’t know what you mean.”
And from then on Elsie, dropping all her city bearing, curled one foot up under her on the car seat, turned her shoulder to Kate, leaned her chin on her hand, and gazed out of the window. Kate sat biting her lips with clutched hands. After a while, when she realized that Elsie’s “cold shoulder” was to be permanent, she got up and crossed the aisle to sit by herself at a window.
“Why am I not furious with her?” she asked herself. “She has no right to treat me like that! And I am angry, of course. But I’m not very angry. Why am I not very angry?”