"Wel-l-l," she was going to slide out of it if she could, "Perry's awfully busy right now, it's so hard to get trustworthy men. And—and then, anyhow, I'm not so sure I'd care to have him enter politics, as they are at present—even if—"
"Don't blame you," I concluded. "Wise decision. But what about the ministry—how about that?"
Here, however, she would have rallied and protested hotly that she had never been keen about the ministry—not at all!—when an occurrence just outside the open door saved her the need.
Perry Blair—Blue Jeans, with no rent in his shirt and a nonsensically expensive hat—had been driving a nail into the wall. The nail had dodged and he had struck his thumb, and was commenting upon it plainly, though with no great heat, aloud.
And she grew pinker still.
"You are a hypocrite," I complained with scorn. "You should blush!" And dropped the matter there.
But I was less concerned with the question of their happiness. And that evening, when a puncher brought a pasteboard box in the mail and all innocently they opened it before me, I became very sure.
For the box held a pair of those inadequate articles of apparel known, I believe, as bootees, designed and executed in knitted silk for an expected new arrival. And they forgot me, forgot that this expectation was supposed to be a secret, in exclaiming over the mystery of who had found them out.
Then she came upon the card. There was no name or address; just one line:
"Winner take all!" it read.