“What!” She almost rose from her place beside him. “Did he——”
“Yes,” he went on clumsily, “he said that you had told him that you and I had fixed things up and that——”
“Before the whole table?” she asked with deceiving coolness.
“Yes,” he said. “That is, to Jawn and me. Your mother——”
“Oh!” she interrupted quietly, but with no concealment of her irony, “just to you and Jawn! That is some comfort. Jawn is such an uncommunicative soul!”
“Oh, but don’t you see,” he tried to make it clear, “that’s how I found out? I——”
“I presume he has written a limerick on the subject by this time,” she laughed, but without mirth. “That’s how you found out? Found out what, pray?”
She had moved several inches away deliberately and settled herself against one of the corners. She seemed very self-possessed.
“Then I found out why I came here,” he persisted. “If Walter had not spoken I might not have known. But that minute I knew. You seemed to be talking to me through him. I was never so stirred in my life; the thing shot through me like a galvanic shock. I went out into the gardens to try and get rid of the thought. But it clung to me, followed me about, danced in my brain and before my eyes all afternoon. And when I saw you step out of that canoe—I knew.”
She lowered her head slightly and studied him for several uncomfortable minutes. As the seconds ticked by and her comic smile did not disappear his hopes oozed, and left him face to face with harsh reality.