She smiled at his naïveté. “But if I have business out there?”
This sounded heartless to Stonor. It was the first and last time that he ventured to criticize her. “Oh,” he objected, “I don’t know what reasons the poor fellow has for burying himself—they must be good reasons, for it’s no joke to live alone! It doesn’t seem quite fair, does it, to dig him out and write him up in the papers?”
“Oh, what must you think of me!” she murmured in a quick, hurt tone.
He saw that he had made a mistake. “I—I beg your pardon,” he stammered contritely. “I thought that was what you meant by business.”
“I’m not a reporter,” she said.
“But they told me——”
“Yes, I know, I lied. I’m not apologizing for that. It was necessary to lie to protect myself from vulgar curiosity.”
He looked his question.
She was not quite ready to answer it yet. “Suppose I had the best of reasons for going,” she said, hurriedly, “a reason that Mrs. Grundy would approve of; it would be your duty as a policeman, wouldn’t it, to help me?”
“Yes—but——?”