“No. That is—well—I don’t really know.” He told her about Gardner and the description of the wreck.
“How did you happen to do that?” she asked curiously.
“Oh, I write a lot of things and put them away and forget them.”
“Show me,” she wheedled. “I’d love to see them.”
He shook his head. “They wouldn’t interest you.” The words were those of an excuse. But in the tone was finality.
“I don’t think you’re very responsive,” she complained. “I’m awfully interested in you and your affairs, and you won’t play back the least bit.”
They walked on in silence for a space. He had, she reflected, a most disconcerting trick of silence, of ignoring quite without embarrassment leads, which in her code imperatively called for return. Annoyance stirred within her, and the eternal feline which is a component part of the eternal feminine asserted itself.
“Perhaps,” she suggested, “you are afraid of me.”
“No; I’m not.”
“By that you mean ‘Why should I be’?”