“You and I are good friends, I hope,” she said uneasily.
“Don’t be silly, Nan; if we’re not, what are we?”
This was not a question she cared to debate; the immediate matter was the narrowness of her escape from a marriage with Copeland and just what she should tell Jerry about it.
“If you know about—that—”
“I make it my business never to know anything! I don’t want to know anything about that bag. So we’ll just forget it.”
Seeing that her eyes rested nervously on the suit-case, he carried it into the hall out of range of any chance caller’s eyes.
“Thank you,” she said absently as he came back. He began speaking volubly of the delights of “Ivanhoe” which Eaton had lately given him to read.
“How many people know about—that?” she demanded, breaking in sharply upon his praise of Scott.
“Oh, the bag? Not a soul; I told you not to worry about that. I found it behind the door in his private office. Purely accidental—honest, it was! He wasn’t feeling well to-day,” he added. “He hung around the store all morning looking pretty glum and didn’t show up at all this afternoon. I went to the club and fished him out about six o’clock and took him home in a taxi. That’s all.”
Reduced to terms, Billy had characteristically celebrated the failure of the elopement by continuing the drunk he had begun the night before. Her good luck had not deserted her if no one but Jerry knew that her suit-case, packed for flight, had stood all day in Copeland’s office. Jerry’s intuitions were too keen for her to attempt dissimulation. It would be better to confess and assure herself of his secrecy.