“Yes. It was very formal and very dull, and I was tired.”
He glanced up with questioning eyes. It was something new for Hal not to stay untill the last moment at a festivity. He thought she looked a little paler than usual, and there were shadows about her eyes, but she interrupted any comment he might make by an inquiry after Doris.
“She is very well.”
He stopped short rather suddenly, and seemed thoughtful. He had been urging Doris to fix the date of their wedding, and let him see about taking a house or a flat, but she had seemed to avoid the subject lately, and he was a little troubled.
“I suppose poor Basil is much the same?”
“Yes. He and Ethel were both asking what had become of you. They said you hadn’t been up for a long time.”
“I haven’t. I’ll go tomorrow. Good-night,” and she kissed him, and went upstairs.
In her own room she sat on the bed, and read the evening paper.
Yes, it was there sure enough, but it was only given as a rumour. “We understand there is a rumour…” How well she knew the phrase, with its dangerous suggestiveness, and safe retreat. She wondered who had started the rumour, and how the paper had got it.
But, again, insistently she asserted it could not be true. If it had not been for last Saturday she might have believed it. But after that… no, he could not be so base. She put the thought away from her, and tried to sleep, but her eyes would look out into the blackness, and her brain ask questions.