“I was talking—to Thomason. My back was turned. He seems to have gone out.” She looked about the room, even under the bed. She didn’t want Baron to see her eyes for a moment. “Such a quaint old gentleman—isn’t he?” she commented. She had moved away from the window. She had almost regained her composure now.
Baron’s brows contracted. He glanced toward the window at which she had been standing. In the depths of the room beyond he thought he could detect a movement. He was not sure.
“Do you and Thomason talk to each other—quite a little?” he asked. He tried to make his tone lightly inconsequential.
“That wouldn’t express it, so far as he is concerned. He won’t talk to me at all. I have to do all the talking.”
“And do you—feel quite confidential toward him?”
“Why, I think you might feel safe in talking to him. He doesn’t seem the sort that carries tales.”
Baron went to the window and looked out. He could see nobody. But when he confronted her again his expression was harsh, there was an angry light in his eyes.
“Bonnie May, you were talking to some one in the other house. You were mentioning Miss Barry. You weren’t talking to Thomason at all.”
She became perfectly still. She was now looking at him steadily. “I was talking to Thomason until he went out,” she said. “Then, as you say, I was ‘talking to some one in the other house.’ Why? Why not?”
The docility of the home life, the eagerness to be pliant and sweet, fell from her wholly. An old influence had been brought to bear upon her, and she was now Bonnie May the actress again. For the moment benefits and obligations were forgot, and the old freedom was remembered.