"That is true."
"Admit, then, I am pardonably curious."
"Well! if you will have the truth . . . When I got over being foolish about you, Michael . . . How long ago it seems!"
"A good half-year."
"I found I was still fond of you. When all's said about that sad affair, you know, it was I who was rather a devil, and you who were rather a dear. I owe you for more than one good turn I never did anything to deserve."
"I wish I might think your associates in that adventure had come out of it as well disposed."
"That absurd Monk, that clown Phinuit! Why bother your head about such canaille?"
"And what has become of the precious pair?"
Plump but pretty shoulders described a gesture of indifference. "I know nothing of them since that day when last you saw us all together. I was out of patience with them then—as I think you guessed. When you dismissed us, I sent them packing. And you?" Lanyard, smiling, shook his head, and the woman cheerfully consigned reminiscences to the grave of those dead yesterdays where they belonged. "Tell me now about yourself."
"What is there to tell?"