“Does that girl work where you do?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Is she engaged to you? She calls you Willy.” He smiled into her eyes.
“Not a bit of it, or thinking of it.”
“How do you know what she's thinking? It's all over her. It's Willy this and Willy that—and men are such fools.”
There flashed into his mind certain things that he had tried to forget; Edith at his doorway, with that odd look in her eyes; Edith never going to sleep until he had gone to bed; and recently, certain things she had said, that he had passed over lightly and somewhat uncomfortably.
“That's ridiculous, Miss Ellen. But even if it were true, which it isn't, don't you think it would be rather nice of her?” He smiled.
“I do not. I heard you going out last night, Willy. Did you find her?”
“She is at the Doyles'. I didn't see her.”
“That'll finish it,” Ellen prophesied, somberly. She glanced around the parlor, at the dust on the furniture, at the unwashed baseboard, at the unwound clock on the mantel shelf.