“She turned round as soon as she had got through with her hymn of praise—it made Braybridge feel awfully flat—and ran back through the bushes to the boat-landing, and—that was the last he saw of her till he met her in town this fall.”
“And when—and when—did he offer himself?” Rulledge entreated breathlessly. “How—”
“Yes, that's the point, Halson,” Minver interposed. “Your story is all very well, as far as it goes; but Rulledge here has been insinuating that it was Miss Hazelwood who made the offer, and he wants you to bear him out.”
Rulledge winced at the outrage, but he would not stay Halson's answer even for the sake of righting himself.
“I have heard,” Minver went on, “that Braybridge insisted on paddling the canoe back to the other shore for her, and that it was on the way that he offered himself.” We others stared at Minver in astonishment. Halson glanced covertly toward him with his gay eyes. “Then that wasn't true?”
“How did you hear it?” Halson asked.
“Oh, never mind. Is it true?”
“Well, I know there's that version,” Halson said evasively. “The engagement is only just out, as you know. As to the offer—the when and the how—I don't know that I'm exactly at liberty to say.”
“I don't see why,” Minver urged. “You might stretch a point for Rulledge's sake.”
Halson looked down, and then he glanced at Minver after a furtive passage of his eye over Rulledge's intense face. “There was something rather nice happened after—But really, now!”