“You can't tell when people are joking. If I'm not, does it follow that I'm really intoxicated?”
“Oh, but that's nonsense, Dr. Morrell. That's mere—what do you call it?—chop logic. But I don't mind it. I grasp at a straw.” Mrs. Munger grasped at a straw of the mind, to show how. “But what do you mean?”
“Well, Mrs. Putney wasn't intoxicated last night, but she's not well this morning. I'm afraid she couldn't see you.”
“Just as you say, doctor,” cried Mrs. Munger, with mounting cheerfulness. “I wish I knew just how much you meant, and how little.” She moved closer to the doctor, and bent a look of candid fondness upon him. “But I know you're trying to mystify me.”
She pursued him with questions which he easily parried, smiling and laughing. At the end she left him to Annie, with adieux that were almost radiant. “Anyhow, I shall take the benefit of the doubt, and if Mr. Putney was hoaxing, I shall not give myself away. Do find out what he means, Miss Kilburn, won't you?” She took hold of Annie's unoffered hand, and pressed it in a double leathern grasp, and ran out of the room with a lightness of spirit which her physical bulk imperfectly expressed.
XX.
“Well?” said Annie, to the change which came over Morrell's face when Mrs. Munger was gone.
“Oh, it's a miserable business! He must go on now to the end of his debauch. He's got past doing any mischief, I'm thankful to say. But I had hoped to tide him over a while longer, and now that fool has spoiled everything. Well!”
Annie's heart warmed to his vexation, and she postponed another emotion. “Yes, she is a fool. I wish you had qualified the term, doctor.”