“What girl,” he asked coolly, looking at his hostess, now the very incarnation of delicate mockery with her pretty laughing mouth, her boyish sunburn and freckles.
“You won't tell me I suppose?”
“I'm sorry—”
“Was she pretty, Stephen?”
“Yes,” he said sulkily; “I wish you wouldn't—”
“Nonsense! Do you think I'm going to let you off without some sort of confession? If I had time now—but I haven't. Kemp has business letters: he'll be furious; so I've got to take his cards or we won't have any pennies to buy gasoline for our adored and shrieking Mercedes.”
She retreated backward with a gay nod of malice, turned to enter the house, and met Sylvia Landis face to face in the hallway.
“You minx!” she whispered; “aren't you ashamed?”
“Very much, dear. What for?” And catching sight of Siward outside in the starlight, divined perhaps something of her hostess' meaning, for she laughed uneasily, like a child who winces under a stern eye.
“You don't suppose for a moment,” she began, “that I have—”