I pursed my mouth and shook my head. “It would be too risky to deceive us as crudely as that,” I said. “Make it so much more significant if we discovered that they had been lying about her.”
Miss Tattersall looked obstinate, putting on that wooden enduring expression peculiar to fair people with pale eyes.
“I don’t believe she has come back,” she said.
I continued to argue. I guessed that she had some piece of evidence in reserve; also, that for some reason she was afraid to produce it. And at last, as I had hoped, my foolish, specious arguments and apparent credulity irritated her to a pitch of exasperation.
“Oh! you can talk till all’s blue,” she broke in with a flash of temper, “but she hasn’t come back.”
“But…” I began.
“I know she hasn’t,” Miss Tattersall said, and the pink of her cheeks spread to her forehead and neck like an overflowing stain.
“Of course if you know…” I conceded.
“I do,” she affirmed, still blushing.
I realised that the moment had come for conciliation. “This is tremendously interesting,” I said.