"Oh, I don't care," airily. "But if you do, I'll tell Mr. Wray."
"Wray?"
"Yes—that you're in love with his wife."
Miss Janney exploded this bombshell casually while she removed her hat, watching him carefully meanwhile in the mirror. If she had planned her coup, she could not have been more fully rewarded, for Cortland started up, clutching at the chair arms, his face aghast; but when his eyes met hers in the mirror he sank back again, laughing uneasily.
"What—who on earth put that silly idea into your head?"
"You—yourself. I watched you at the Warringtons."
"What nonsense! I've known Camilla a long time."
"Not so long as you've known me. And you never looked at me like that." She laid her hat beside her crop on the table, then turned quickly and put her hand over his on the chair arm. "You may trust me, Cortland, dear. If I'm going to be your sister, I may as well begin at once. It's true, isn't it?"
He remained silent a long while, his gaze fixed on the open fire before him. Then at last he turned his hand over so that his fingers clasped hers. "Yes," he whispered, "it's true, Gretchen. It's true."
"I'm so sorry, Cort," she murmured. "I suspected from your letters. I wish I might have helped you. I feel somehow that I am to blame—that we ever got engaged. Won't you tell me how it happened that she married him—instead of you?"