"Had to!"
"Isabel didn't know you had to. If she tried to find out, I fancy she was told little girls shouldn't ask questions. It was Lot's wife who really came between you, but Isabel wouldn't have been jealous of Lot's wife."
"I suppose not," said Dicky doubtfully.
"Do you remember meeting the Misses Bingham in the Ufizzi? and telling them you were going to be——"
"That's so."
"You didn't give them enough details. And they told me they were going to Vallombrosa. And when Miss Cora said good-bye to me she told me you were a dear or something."
"Why didn't you say I wasn't?"
"Dicky, if you are going to assume that it was my fault——"
"Only one decent hotel—hardly anybody in it—foregathered with old lady Portheris—told every mortal thing they knew! Oh," groaned Dicky. "Why was an old maid ever born!"
"She never was," I couldn't help saying, but I might as well not have said it. Dicky was rapidly formulating his plan of action.