"And I am just dying to talk to you," declared Cleo, "so we ought to have a lovely time. Come on for a walk down to the stone bridge. No one is going that way at this hour."
"Because lovers are scarce around here, I suppose," Grace guessed, "for twilight, lovers and stone bridges are always combined in the movies."
"Then we will be the lovers," proposed Cleo. "Come along, darling," and she twined her arm around the shoulders of her friend, in sincere affection, if in pretended affectation.
"I know what you are going to say," Grace began. "It's about Mary's secret."
"Of course," admitted Cleo. "I have been breathless with excitement since she told us. Grace, do you see what may have happened? Just what may have, of course."
"You mean she may belong to people in America who would love to know about her?"
"Yes, that is an easy guess. But why should Professor Benson deny her identity?"
"He is also denying his own. Why does he do that?"
"And there is not the slightest possibility he could ever have committed a crime. No man with his personality is ever a criminal."
"No, indeed," vouched Grace, quite unconscious of posing as an expert on character.