"Nope."
"She said you did."
"She said that?"
"Yes. She thought you had told me who she was."
"Hell! She might have known I'd never crack. It's her own business, and—I've got troubles enough with this cannery on my hands."
"I wish you had told me," said Emerson.
"Why? There's no use of rehearsing the dog-eared dope. Nobody can live the past over again, and who wants to repeat the present? It's only the future that's worth while. I guess her future is just as good as anybody's."
"What she told me came as a shock."
"Fingerless" Fraser grunted. "I don't know why. For my part, I can't stand for an ingenue. If ever I get married, Cherry's the sort for me. I'm out of the kindergarten myself, and I'd hate to spend my life cutting paper figures for my wife. No, sir! If I ever seize a frill, I want her to know as much as me; then she won't tear away with the first dark-eyed diamond broker that stops in front of my place to crank up his whizz-buggy. You never heard of a wise woman breaking up her own home, did you? It's the pink-faced dolls from the seminary that fall for Bertie the Beautiful Cloak Model."
Fraser whittled himself a toothpick as he went on: