"Everything gets known in this infernal little town," he retorted.
"That's where you're mistaken," said I. "Half everything gets known—the unimportant half. The rest is supplied by malicious or prejudiced invention."
We discussed the question after the futile way of men until we went into the drawing-room, where Betty played and sang to us until it was time to go home.
Marigold was about to lift me into the two-seater when Betty, who had been lurking in her car a little way off, ran forward.
"Would it bore you if I came in for a quarter of an hour?"
"Bore me, my dear?" said I. "Of course not."
So a short while afterwards we were comfortably established in my library.
"You rang me up to-day about Phyllis Gedge."
"I did," said I.
She lit a cigarette and seated herself on the fender-stool. She has an unconscious knack of getting into easy, loose-limbed attitudes. I said admiringly: