"I'm flattered that you noticed it," I said, sitting down on a fallen tree and looking up at her as she stood, tall and lithe, against an old pine, with her eyes averted. "I shouldn't have supposed you'd want an old fogy like myself poking about and spoiling the idyllic moments of love's young dream."
"Why do you always speak of yourself as old?" said Betty, crossly, ignoring my reference to Frank.
"Because I am old, my dear. Witness these gray hairs."
I pushed up my hat to show them the more recklessly.
Betty barely glanced at them.
"You have just enough to give you a distinguished look," she said, "and you are only forty. A man is in his prime at forty. He never has any sense until he is forty—and sometimes he doesn't seem to have any even then," she concluded impertinently.
My heart beat. Did Betty suspect? Was that last sentence meant to inform me that she was aware of my secret folly, and laughed at it?
"I came over to see what has gone wrong between you and Frank," I said gravely.
Betty bit her lips.
"Nothing," she said.