“I know that he is married.”
2
Betty, as she threw out this bit of uncompromising truth, was stirred with a thrill of wilder adventure than had hitherto entered her somewhat untrammeled young life. The situation had outrun her experience; she was acting on instinct. There was a sense of shock, too; and of hurt—hurt that Mrs. Boatwright could look, feel, so forbidding. Her firm face, now pressed together from chin to forehead, wrinkled across, squinting unutterable suspicions, stirred a resistance in Betty's breast that for a little time flared into anger.
There was no telling what Mrs. Boatwright felt. Her frown even relaxed, after a moment. The outbreak of moral superiority that Betty looked for didn't come. Instead she said:
“How did you learn this?”
“He told me.”
“Oh, he told you?”
“Well, he wrote a letter before he—went away.”
“Oh. he went away!”
“Yes. He went. Without a word. I didn't know where he was.”