"So Roger says," she agreed with obvious relief. "It is only talking. I cannot see why Roger could not learn to do it himself. Can you not do it, either?"
I shook my head. I was trying to believe that she was not quite sane, but it was impossible. Her mind, I could have sworn, was as vigorous as my own, though there was a difference, evidently. The precise, beautiful articulation of her English gave me a new direction. She must be a foreigner—Italian, for choice, in spite of her English eyes.
"Marrying people is a business like any other, Miss—I did not hear your last name?" I ventured.
"I have none," she said. "I mean," correcting herself, "Roger says that I must have one, of course, but I do not happen to have heard it," she added calmly.
"Ah, well," I said coldly, "it is a mere detail."
I was seriously vexed with Roger. This young woman passed belief. I decided that she was an actress of the first water and resented being imposed upon.
"It is the same with my age—how old I am," she continued. "Roger thinks I am twenty years of age. Do you? He is going to ask you."
"Really, I can't say," I returned shortly, "I am a poor judge of women's ages—or characters," I added pointedly.
She did not blush nor move. Only her eyes widened slightly and darkened.
"Roger will ask you," she repeated and I felt, unreasonably, as it seemed to me then, that my tone had hurt her, as one's tone, utterly incomprehensible as the words it utters may be, will hurt a child.