"Then I will," said Lucy, "when I see a man trying to do his duty like a man, I help him always, and besides you dance like a breeze."
So they went away together, he apologizing and she teasing.
"How about me?" I said to Evelyn. "Is it my turn?"
"No," she said, "it isn't. I want to talk to you."
I sat down facing her in the chair that Dawson Cooper had occupied. "Just now," she said, "when you and Lucy went outside, I heard someone say to someone else——"
"Hadn't they any names?"
"No. She said to him, 'It's about time John Fulton came back. Lucy's making a fool of herself.'"
Somehow I seemed to turn all cold inside.
"Of course," said Evelyn, "Lucy knows and you know and I know, but the man in the street who sees you ride out together day after day, and the woman who's no particular friend of yours, who sees you dance dance after dance together—they don't know. Aiken is a small place, but like the night, it has a thousand eyes, and as many idle tongues. If I didn't know Lucy so well, and you so well, I'd be a little worried."
"Why," I said, "it's a golf year. Nobody would rather ride, except Lucy and me."