She smiled soberly.
"You have made it obvious—both of you; perhaps a little too obvious." Then, after a momentary silence: "Did Miss Mehitable give the real reason for that other and mortal quarrel, three years ago, Richard?"
"The reason she gave was enough, wasn't it?"
"Some of us thought it wasn't. I don't know how you were acting, but Conetta didn't give a very good imitation of a person who has 'agreed to disagree.'"
"I can fill out the picture for you," I said grimly. "I was acting like a man who had been fool enough to lose his temper at the invitation of a crabbed and rather spiteful person who was old enough to be his mother."
"Ah!" she said; "I thought it was Miss Mehitable." Then: "Was it because you had lost your money?"
"Yes," I said, merely because the simple affirmative seemed to afford the easiest way of brushing aside explanations which might not explain.
It was then that Miss Madeleine Barclay became a plagiarist, stealing the very words uttered so hotly by Edie Van Tromp only a few hours earlier.
"Money—always money! I hate it, Dick Preble!"
I did not answer her as I had answered Edith.