Yet, when the time came, he found it hard to tell her. He took her for a drive one evening soon after his return, forcibly driving off Wallie Sayre to do so, and eying surreptitiously now and then her pale, rather set face. He found a quiet lane and stopped the car there, and then turned and faced her.
“How've you been, little sister, while I've been wandering the gay white way?” he asked.
“I've been all right, Leslie.”
“Not quite all right, I think. Have you ever thought, Elizabeth, that no man on earth is worth what you've been going through?”
“I'm all right, I tell you,” she said impatiently. “I'm not grieving any more. That's the truth, Les. I know now that he doesn't intend to come back, and I don't care. I never even think about him, now.”
“I see,” he said. “Well, that's that.”
But he had not counted on her intuition, and was startled to hear her say:
“Well? Go on.”
“What do you mean, go on?”
“You brought me out here to tell me something.”