“But that may make you a little more comfortable when you think things over—and I'm sure we all deserve to be very comfortable indeed for quite a long while after the very trying time we've just been through.
“Good-by, and I assure you that even if I shall never be able to think of you in the future except as all wrapped up in the middle of those absurd towels, I shall think of you quite kindly though rather ridiculously nevertheless. And now if you will just run away a minute and wait down in that car of Sargent's that Oliver—borrowed—so effectively—because I must have one motherly word with Oliver alone before we part forever! Thank you so much! Good-by!”
XLIII
So Oliver was left alone with her, he didn't know why. He noticed, however, that when she came to talk to him, though it was still with lightness, she was at no particular effort any longer to make the lightness anything but a method of dealing with wounds.
“Mr. Billett does not seem quite to appreciate exactly how much your timely pugilistics did for him,” she observed. “Or exactly how they might have affected you.”
Oliver set his jaw, rather. He was hardly going to discuss what Ted might or might not owe him with Mrs. Severance. Hardly.
“No, I suppose you wouldn't,” she said uncannily. Then she spoke again and this time if the tone was airy it was with the airiness of a defeated swordsman apologizing for having been killed by such a clumsy stroke of fence.
“But I have some—comprehension—of just what you did. And besides—I seem to have a queer foible for telling the truth just now. Odd, isn't it, when I've been lying so successfully all evening?”
“Very successfully,” said Oliver, and, to his astonishment, saw her wince.