She looked at him tentatively. His eyes were closed, the lids curiously dark, and fringed with long lashes like a girl's.
"Are you asleep?" she asked.
"No," he answered without raising them. "Only tired."
She considered for a moment, then said:
"Have you ever told a lie?"
"A lie? I don't know. I guess so. Everybody tells lies sometime or other."
"Not little lies. Serious ones, sinful ones, to people you love."
"No. I never told that kind. That's a pretty low-down thing to do."
"Mightn't a person do it—to—to—escape from something they didn't want, something they suddenly—at that particular moment—dreaded and shrank from?"
"Why couldn't they speak out, say they didn't want to do it? Why did they have to lie?"