“Which?”
“Mark Lennan. Haven't you seen?”
“What?”
“My dear, it was under your nose. But you never do see these things!”
The Colonel slowly turned his head. His wife was an imaginative woman! She had always been so. Dimly he perceived that something romantic was about to come from her. But with that almost professional gentleness of a man who has cut the heads and arms off people in his time, he answered:
“What things?”
“He picked up her handkerchief.”
“Whose?”
“Olive's. He put it in his pocket. I distinctly saw him.”
There was silence; then Mrs. Ercott's voice rose again, impersonal, far away.