"Dressed like that!"
Profound scorn informed this comment. The girl writhed, but held herself well in hand.
"It was so late," she explained, "I didn't think it possible there'd be anybody else about."
"Of course you didn't." The woman's tone was saturated with hateful innuendo. "On the other hand, you soon discovered your mistake, didn't you?"
Sally muttered a sullen "Yes . . ."
"You're wise not to lie I to me," her patroness remarked with just a suspicion of satisfaction. "I knew, you see. I've been sitting here, waiting, the better part of an hour, listening to you two bickering behind the hedge. You little fool!"
Sally said nothing. Her mood was all obsessed now with the conviction that this was the end to her life of a moth. An end to everything; come morning and she must be cast forth in disgrace, to go back to . . .
She choked upon an importunate sob and dug nails into the palms of her hands.
"Who was the man?" Mrs. Standish pursued inexorably.
Then she didn't know!