Which was where I begun to work up a hunch. Course, it's only a wild suspicion at first. She don't fit the description at all. Still, if she should be the one—I could feel the panicky shivers chasin' up and down my backbone just at the thought. I expect my voice wavered a little as I put the question.
"Say," says I, "you don't happen to be Bonnie Sutton, do you?"
That got a laugh out of her. It's no throaty, old-hen cackle, either. It's clear and trilly.
"Thank you, Torchy," says she. "You've guessed it. But please tell me how?"
"Why," says I, draggy, "I—er—you see——" And then I'm struck with this foolish idea. Honest, I couldn't help pullin' it. "Mr. Ellins," I goes on, "happened to show me your picture."
"What!" says she. "My picture? I—I can hardly believe it."
"Wait," says I. "It's right here in the drawer. That is, it was. Yep! This one. There!"
And say, as I flashed that old photo on her I didn't have the nerve to watch her face. You get me, don't you? If you'd changed as much as she had how would you like to be stacked up sudden against a view of what you was once? So I looked the other way. Must have been a minute or more before I glanced around again. She was still starin' at the picture and brushin' something off her eyelashes.
"Torchy," says she, "I could almost hug you for that. What a really talented young liar you are! And how thoroughly delightful of you to do it!"
"Oh, I don't know," says I. "Anyway, it's the picture he showed me when he was tellin' about you."