“He told me there was a rich fellow over in England who was crazy about you and had asked you to marry him, and that you had turned him down.”
Sally's momentary annoyance faded. She could hardly, she felt, have expected Fillmore to refrain from mentioning the matter to his wife.
“Yes,” she said. “That's true.”
“You couldn't write and say you've changed your mind?”
Sally's annoyance returned. All her life she had been intensely independent, resentful of interference with her private concerns.
“I suppose I could if I had—but I haven't. Did Fillmore tell you to try to talk me round?”
“Oh, I'm not trying to talk you round,” said Mrs. Fillmore quickly. “Goodness knows, I'm the last person to try and jolly anyone into marrying anybody if they didn't feel like it. I've seen too many marriages go wrong to do that. Look at Elsa Doland.”
Sally's heart jumped as if an exposed nerve had been touched.
“Elsa?” she stammered, and hated herself because her voice shook. “Has—has her marriage gone wrong?”
“Gone all to bits,” said Mrs. Fillmore shortly. “You remember she married Gerald Foster, the man who wrote 'The Primrose Way'?”