A Sheaf of Corn

by Mary E. Mann

"You are not comfortable at the hotel?"

"I prefer apartments."

"Perhaps for a young woman, alone, it is better."

Now for my opportunity.

"I have not been alone until this morning," I told him steadily. "My sister left me by the early train; before breakfast."

"You probably miss her very much?"

"I do. She scarcely ever leaves me. We have everything in common. She is my twin-sister. You could scarcely tell the one from the other, apart."

The information did not flow from me as I desired, but was, rather, gasped out—or so it seems to me on looking back.

I felt him turn his eyes on me—they look absurdly blue and youthful in his sun-reddened, middle-aged face—but I think I mentioned this before. You know how I love a man's hair clipped to the bone, Berthalina? My dear, this one wears his in a mop! I must admit, however, it is a soft kind of hair, and does not arrange itself badly.

"We even share the same bed," I went on. I had to twist my fingers together painfully to maintain the necessary levelness of the indifferent voice. "But that is a matter of precaution."