“Gone where?”
“With or after Miss Regan.”
“Why?”
“I thought you were—well, I guess you get me. That being the case, I didn’t think you’d pass up the chance to be with her.”
Clifford hesitated, then spoke the truth: “The last time I saw Mary Regan, I promised not to speak to her until she sent for me.”
“And it was your promise that stopped you?” Uncle George asked incredulously.
“Yes.”
“You poor simp! I suppose you thought she’d be thinking of you, only you, with you out of her sight for six months—and that then there’d come a sweet little message like them they flash on the movie screens!”
Clifford did not reply. Uncle George had very nearly expressed his thought.
“No woman ever lived that could keep thinking of one man for six months, and him away!” Uncle George leaned closer, and spoke in a low voice. “See here, son,—while you’ve been keeping your promise and remaining strictly off the premises, what do you think the other people have been doing?”