“What a libel,” she cried holding it up. “This is your handiwork, I should imagine. When did you take it?”
“Oh! I don’t know,” he answered carelessly, “Jill took it one day. She has taken him lots of times; he often calls in.”
Evie’s eyebrows went up with a show of surprise.
“Is he a friend of—Mrs St. John?” she asked.
“I suppose so; Jill likes him. He and I were always rather chummy, and he drops in in to talk about—oh! well, about old times and—friends, you know.”
“He never told me,” she rejoined slowly. “I saw him yesterday and he mentioned very casually that he met you recently; he did not say that he was intimate here.”
“Perhaps he didn’t think that it would interest you,” he suggested. “Or he might have thought the subject tabooed.”
“With me?” she cried. “Impossible! I am always talking about you.”
“Very flattering of you, my dear Evie,” he laughingly rejoined, “but you’ll never persuade me that you are so one idead.”
Miss Bolton put the photograph back in its place, and turned towards the entrance with an evident desire to get away.