The professor's chair, which had been tilted negligently back, came down with a thud.
"After?" he murmured meekly. "After—?"
"I mean," prompted Desire gently, "did she marry the other man?"
"The other man? I—I don't know." The professor was willing to be truthful while he could. But instantly he saw that it wouldn't do.
"You—don't—know?" If ever incredulity breathed in any voice it breathed in hers. It gave our weak-kneed liar the brace that he needed.
"No," he said sadly, "they were to have been married—I have never heard."
"Oh! Then, of course, she did not live in your home town."
"Didn't she?" asked Spence, momentarily off guard. "Oh, I see what you mean—no, naturally not."
"I thought that perhaps you might have been boy and girl together," dreamily. "It so often happens."
"It does," said Spence. "But it didn't."