“Me? Oh, I’m living near here.”
Mr. Cootes started.
“Not married?” he exclaimed in alarm.
“No!” cried Miss Peavey with vehemence, and shot a tender glance up at his face. “And I guess you know why, Ed.”
“You don’t mean . . . you hadn’t forgotten me?”
“As if I could ever forget you, Eddie! There’s only one tintype on my mantelpiece.”
“But it struck me . . . it sort of occurred to me as a passing thought that, when we saw each other last, you were a mite peeved with your Eddie . . .”
It was the first allusion either of them had made to the past unpleasantness, and it caused a faint blush to dye Miss Peavey’s soft cheek.
“Oh, shucks!” she said. “I’d forgotten all about that next day. I was good and mad at the time, I’ll allow, but if only you’d called me up next morning, Ed . . .”
There was a silence, as they mused on what might have been.