“That is one of the chances. But you seem to be suffering about it, Mr. Verrian!” she said, and, of course, she laughed.
“Who? I?” he returned, in the temptation to deny it. But he resisted. “I always suffer when there’s anything silly happening, as if I were doing it myself. Don’t you?”
“No, thank you, I believe not. But perhaps you are doing this? One can’t suppose Mrs. Westangle imagined it.”
“No, I can’t plead guilty. But why isn’t it predicable of Mrs. Westangle?”
“You mustn’t ask too much of me, Mr. Verrian. Somehow, I won’t say how, it’s been imagined for her. She’s heard of its being done somewhere. It can’t be supposed she’s read of it, anywhere.”
“No, I dare say not.”
Miss Macroyd came out with her laugh. “I should like to know what she makes of you, Mr. Verrian, when she is alone with herself. She must have looked you up and authenticated you in her own way, but it would be as far from your way as—well, say—the Milky Way.”
“You don’t think she asked me because she met me at your house?”
“No, that wouldn’t be enough, from her point of view. She means to go much further than we’ve ever got.”
“Then a year from now she wouldn’t ask me?”