“I am glad you did that,” she said quietly.
“You’ve a right to be. You’re responsible. For the way I wrote it, I mean. You gave me the notion.”
“I am glad of that, too. But I am sorrier than ever that I did not see your article.”
“Perhaps I’ll show it to you some day.”
She nodded, without asking him how or where. Marcia Ames was one of those individuals who wait unquestioningly and accept generously. “It is quite a coincidence my meeting you here,” she said. “For I wished to ask you about the article.”
Behold the path now made plain for the lurker and retracer of steps! No need even for those well-formulated lies; he could simply accept the theory of coincidence. And, most unaccountably, he found that he could n’t. Perhaps he could have, had he not looked into her eyes just then. That steady, limpid, candid, confident regard of hers forbade even a petty and harmless deceit of convenience. Once for all Jeremy Robson knew that whatever might be between them in future, there would at least be truth. And with a sharp pang, felt the foreboding that the truth might yet hurt him to the limit of his capacity for pain.
“No,” he denied. “No coincidence.”
“Not?” she asked, surprised.
“I’ve passed here every day for the last ten days.”
“Do you live on this block?”