“I think I could make a guess at it,” Lester replied.
“They were all very much worried over the fact that you were sick—mother particularly. You’re not in any danger of having a relapse, are you?”
“I think not.”
“Louise said there was some sort of a peculiar ménage she ran into up here. You’re not married, are you?”
“No.”
“The young woman Louise saw is just—” Robert waved his hand expressively.
Lester nodded.
“I don’t want to be inquisitive, Lester. I didn’t come up for that. I’m simply here because the family felt that I ought to come. Mother was so very much distressed that I couldn’t do less than see you for her sake”—he paused, and Lester, touched by the fairness and respect of his attitude, felt that mere courtesy at least made some explanation due.
“I don’t know that anything I can say will help matters much,” he replied thoughtfully. “There’s really nothing to be said. I have the woman and the family has its objections. The chief difficulty about the thing seems to be the bad luck in being found out.”
He stopped, and Robert turned over the substance of this worldly reasoning in his mind. Lester was very calm about it. He seemed, as usual, to be most convincingly sane.