"I envy you and Bill, Mavis," she said, once, when Fong had left the room, "you have so much to make you happy. He's a very lucky man."
I smiled. It was not a subject on which I wished to be interrogated.
"And you," she went on, "are a lucky girl. He's awfully fine, that husband of yours."
She played for a moment with her tea-spoon, and looked at me, rather pathetically.
"I like the way American men are with their wives," she said, "I wish I could have met a Billy—"
I might have responded that, in a few months' time, my husband would be legally free to take an interest in such remarks, but I refrained.
"You must have met a number of men, in two years," I said.
"Not Billies," she answered firmly, "awfully young they were, and—" she paused.
Fong came in just then, and the conversation took a more discreet turn. After luncheon, siesta-ing in the two big swings down among the palms, I brought up the subject again.
"So, after all," I said, "the 'right man' must be an American, Mercedes?"