“Yes,” she said, “I am.”
Her husband watched her over the top of his newspaper.
“I can’t believe there’s anything in it,” he said. “But it’s a shame that Jim should worry you so.”
“He doesn’t mean to.”
“Probably he doesn’t, but what’s the difference? You’re unhappy and he’s the reason of it. And it isn’t as though he were a cub any longer, either. He’s old enough to know what he’s about. He’s no Willy Baxter.”
“That is what makes me anxious,” said Helen Shotwell. “Do you know, dear, that he hasn’t dined here once this week, yet he seems to go nowhere else––nowhere except to her.”
“What sort of woman is she?” he demanded, wiping his eyeglasses as though preparing to take a long-distance look at Palla.
“I know her only at the Red Cross.”
“Well, is she at all common?”
“No.... That is why it is difficult for me to talk to Jim about her. There’s nothing of that sort to criticise.”