"Do you mean to say that—that you are going along in the Andromeda?" she asked faintly.
"It is even so—more is the pity. I had committed myself to Bonteck, in a way, before I knew the names on his passenger list."
"And if you had known, you would have refused?"
"I don't know. Most likely I should; and not altogether out of consideration for you. You see, I am quite frank."
"You are; most refreshingly frank. One might have hoped that time, and—and——"
----"And absence and new fields and faces, and all that, would make me forget," I finished for her. "Unhappily, they haven't. But that is neither here nor there. Though I have kept pretty well out of the civilized world for the past three years, there has been a word now and then from home. Tell me plainly, Connie—how much does Jerry Dupuyster know?"
"He knows that three years ago we were engaged to be married, you and I." The cool voice trembled a little, but it was still well under control.
"That is better," I commented with a sigh of relief; and it was better because, if Jerry hadn't known, there would have been chances for hideous complications on the proposed cruise of the Andromeda, or at least, in some inchoate way, I felt there would. "Does Jerry know why it was broken off?" I went on.
"He thinks he does."
"Which is to say that he accepts your Aunt Mehitable's version of it; the one she published broadcast among our friends—that, without any cause assigned, we simply agreed to disagree?"