“Why, Hobbiest—I thought it was rather nice that we had such a great big secret all our own. But you’re right—I see that now. I should have met him at the door, I suppose, and said, ‘You are merely wasting your time, Mr. See. I will never desert my Wilkins!’ Only that might have been a little awkward, in a way, because, you see, ‘Nobody asked you to,’ he said—or might have said.”
“He never told you, then?”
“Not a word.”
“But you knew?”
“Yes,” said Lyn. “I knew.” She twisted a button on his coat and spoke with a little wistful catch in her voice. “I do like him, Hobby—I can’t help it. Only so much.” She indicated how much on the nail of a small finger. “Just a little teeny bit. But that little bit is—”
“Strictly plutonic?”
“Yes,” she said in a small meek voice. “How did you know? He makes me like him, Hobbiest. It—it scares me sometimes.”
“Pretty cool, I’ll say, for a girl that has only been engaged a week, if you should happen to ask me.”
“Oh, but that’s not the same thing—not the same thing at all! You couldn’t keep me from liking you, not if you tried ever so hard. That is all settled. But Charlie makes me like him. You see, he is such a real people; I feel like the Griffin did about the Minor Cañon: ‘He was brave and good and honest, and I think I should have relished him.’”
Hobby held her at arm’s length and regarded her quizzically. “So young, and yet so tender?”