She stared at him blankly and shook her head. "You know how Dad feels about you. I've never dared mention your name."
A cold feeling settled in the pit of Durham's stomach. There's somebody else, Lloyd, who wanted you to have another chance. Fatherly intuition?
Or a big fat lie?
Let's face it, Durham, why would Hawtree send you on a mission to the dog pound? There are ten billion people on The Hub. He could have found somebody else.
The whole business smells. It reeks.
But wait. Suppose he sent Susan here to test me; to see if I'd talk? Not too believable, but a pleasanter belief than the alternative. Let's see.
"Susan. Look, I can say this now because I'm going home and that's the end of it. We won't see each other any more. I should never have got engaged to Willa, I didn't love her. It was you all the time."
He caught the quick glint of tears in her eyes and was appalled. Tears for him? From Susan Hawtree?
"That's why I went with you that night," she whispered. "I thought I could take you from her. I thought I could make you be what you ought to be—oh, damn you, Lloyd, I should never have come here!"
She jumped up and walked rapidly away from the table. He followed her, with his eyes and his mouth both wide open and something very strange happening inside him.