Margaret was still musing dreamily when they finally got to the car and started off in the direction of Silver Spring, where Valeria Schmitt lived in maiden retirement. "It will be just wonderful, dear," she said and then sighed. "Oh, but it reminds me of those poor Valentes, going off on their honeymoon."
"Now, now. I'm the one who's supposed to be obsessed with the crash, not you."
"Oh, but that was so sad. He was so handsome. And she was a pretty little thing, too, if you could tell from the wedding pictures. And then having postponed the wedding twice, too! It seems just like some fate was dogging them."
Kessler chuckled. "I don't think mumps really qualifies as an evil fate."
"No, but can you imagine! First him and then her! If it had been only one or the other they would both be alive and happy today."
"Alive anyway. I talked to some of his friends who suggested he was a mean one even before he had mumps." He smiled at his wife. "Even if he was good-looking. And now will you look out for Miss Schmitt's number before I pile us up and we miss out on our second honeymoon?"
Miss Schmitt proved to look as well as sound much younger than Kessler knew her to be, a bright and plump little woman with very very blond hair tightly curled. Margaret had come along into her little apartment without much urging. Miss Schmitt had apparently been expecting both of them because she had three flower-painted glasses out for lemonade.
"I suppose I'm old-fashioned," she was saying cheerfully before they were even settled, "but I don't hold by cocktails. Nothing more cooling than good old lemonade. Real lemons, too, not this bottled stuff. You know what they say—you can take them out of the country but you can't take the country out of them!" She laughed breathlessly. "I've been living in the big city for twenty-five years now but I'm still an Ioway girl. Get back almost every year, too, still perfectly at home there. I'll be sitting out on the veranda next month drinking lemonade and shooing flies like I'd never been away!" She laughed her breathless laugh again.
Margaret was obviously enjoying herself as much as Valeria Schmitt. Even Kessler was relaxed now, leaning back in the choice chair by the window with his collar pulled open. His search had been a neurotic one, he decided, as he listened to Miss Schmitt's pleasant chatter. He realized he would learn nothing here, but now he was not angry even with himself.