"You can be glad that Mason did not choose to question me about you," snapped Bronson. "I'd have denied you deeply."
"All a part of your tale to convince," she smiled. "I'd have forced it into the open—forced Mason to let us meet. Then we'd make out."
"Fine, fine," he said with a bitter grin. "Just tell me what the score is right now."
"I happen to know that you are right," she told him.
"But—"
She nodded. She explained at length that she had been tinkering in her cellar and had come in with something that had permitted her to hear his half of the initial discussion with the girl named Carlson.
She paused at that point and grinned at him. "Just to keep the record clear," she said, "I'm Virginia Wells."
"Well, Miss Wells, I'm grateful. But what does a girl like you find interesting in tinkering in the cellar?"
"You call me Virginia like everybody else," she told him. "As for tinkering in the cellars, when has a woman's appeal anything to do with the liking for science—and furthermore I might even resent the phrase 'like you' that was hurled at me. Do you think anybody that looks like this must necessarily be completely vacant above the ears?"
Bronson smiled. "Not every girl," he said with a sour smile. "But the percentage assays high."