“Very.”
“He never told me anything about her,” admitted Mrs. Van, candidly. “Mr. Hard ain’t one to chatter about his private affairs, but I got it out of Marc Scott.”
“Oh!”
“He said she was a singer; married an Englishman and lived down near Mexico City. Husband died two or three years ago. I’ve a notion she’s an old sweetheart of Henry Hard’s—you can tell from her clothes it’s an old picture.”
“I like her looks,” commented Polly.
“So do I. Give me a wide-awake looking woman every time,” agreed Mrs. Van Zandt. “There, I must hustle or Dolores will put red pepper in the eggs.”
Polly stared at the photograph. It was of a tall, slender woman, with large dark eyes, and obviously of a personality distinctly pleasing. She had, even in the photograph, an air of vitality which accounted for Mrs. Van’s comment.
“And he looks like the sort of man who would stay single for a woman,” she said, pensively. Then her thoughts returned to her own position. Her eyes filled.
“Oh, why did I come? Why did I?” she asked herself for the fiftieth time. “Because I was a coward and didn’t want to hear what people were going to say about me. As though it mattered what the kind of people I know think of anybody! And now I’ve marooned myself in this dreadful place and I’ll have to stay till Bob comes—we can’t go chasing each other across the country like this. And that miserable Scott man knows why I came! Well, I can snub him, anyhow.”
Polly planted both feet firmly on the floor and reached for her stockings. A few minutes later she stood in the doorway, a dark sweater drawn over her lacy waist, her plaid skirt blowing in the breeze, and her vivid hair covered only with a net. The air was cool and bracing, the sun just beginning to be a bit warm, the mountains emerging from behind fleecy clouds, and the sky as blue as that of Italy.