"Well, what?"
Earle evidently mitigated what she had been about to say.
"I only mean that—that you must have thought it queer, my talking as I did—that morning, you know?"
Louie saw the approach of the first attitude for her garner.
"When they punished me—when I was washing the fruit trees."
"I remember. Well, why should I think anything queer?"
Earle's head dropped again. Again the sharp nodule of bone showed.
"Do you mean," Louie said, "that if my father's what I said, no doubt I know as much about what you were saying as you do?"
"Oh no!" Earle said, the more quickly that that probably had been what she had meant.