The clearing, most of it, was done silently. I washed the plates, the coffee pot and other things, in the pond and she packed them in the basket. As I returned with the knife and forks I found her looking at the coffee pot and smiling.
“What is the matter?” I asked, sulkily. I was provoked with myself for forgetting who and what I was, and with her for making me forget. “Isn't it clean?”
“Why, yes,” she answered, “surprisingly so. Did they teach Domestic Science at your college, too?”
I started. “MY college!” I repeated. “How did you know I had been at college? Did Mother tell you?”
She laughed gleefully.
“Did Mother tell you?” I demanded. “If she did—”
“Well, what if she did? However, she did not. But you have told me now. Harvard, was it? or Yale?”
I tossed the knife and fork into the basket and turned away.
“Princeton, perhaps,” suggested Miss Colton.
I walked over and began to unjoint my rod. I was a fool to be trapped like this. No one in Denboro except Mother and George Taylor knew of my brief college career, and now I had, practically, told this girl of it. She might—if she were sufficiently interested to remember, which was fortunately not probable—tell her father and he might ask other questions concerning my history. Where would those questions lead?