Albert shook his head. “No, Rachel,” he replied. “I didn't speak.”
“I thought I heard you or somebody say somethin'. I—Why, Laban Keeler, what are you doin' away from your desk this time in the afternoon?”
Laban grinned as he entered the kitchen.
“Did I hear you say you thought you heard somebody sayin' somethin', Rachel?” he inquired. “That's queer, ain't it? Seemed to me I heard somebody sayin' somethin' as I come up the path just now. Seemed as if they was sayin' it right here in the kitchen, too. 'Twasn't your voice, Albert, and it couldn't have been Rachel's, 'cause she NEVER talks—'specially to you. It's too bad, the prejudice she's got against you, Albert,” he added, with a wink. “Um-hm, too bad—yes, 'tis—yes, yes.”
Mrs. Ellis sniffed.
“And that's what the newspapers in war time used to call—er—er—oh, dear, what was it?—camel—seems's if 'twas somethin' about a camel—”
“Camouflage?” suggested Albert.
“That's it. All that talk about me is just camouflage to save him answerin' my question. But he's goin' to answer it. What are you doin' away from the office this time in the afternoon, I want to know?”
Mr. Keeler perched his small figure on the corner of the kitchen table.
“Well, to tell you the truth, Rachel,” he said solemnly. “I'm here to do what the folks in books call demand an explanation. You and I, Rachel, are just as good as engaged to be married, ain't we? I've been keepin' company with you for the last twenty, forty or sixty years, some such spell as that. Now, just as I'm gettin' used to it and beginnin' to consider it a settled arrangement, as you may say, I come into this house and find you shut up in the kitchen with another man. Now, what—”