“Would you have liked to know where I was?”
“I hate duplicity. I thought that Myra, at least—my God! Is there anybody in the world one can trust?”
Suddenly she turned on him. “What are you doing in that absurd livery?”
“I’ve been earning my living in it, since last August. I’ve done it before. It’s an honester way than many others.”
“Forgive me, if I don’t understand,” she said, still half-bewildered. “You have no need to earn your living by driving a car—a common chauffeur—unless——”
She checked herself with a little gasp—but his quick brain divined her impulsive thought.
“Unless I had taken to drink and gone to the bad, etcetera, etcetera——”
She interrupted him quickly. “No, no. I never thought that. It was a reductio ad absurdum. But on what other hypothesis——? You’ve still your brain, your talent, your genius. Your pen——”
“Which is mightier than the wheel,” he remarked.
“I don’t know why you didn’t go to Poland. Perhaps you’ll explain. Anyhow you didn’t. You came here—to the absolute quiet of the country. Why haven’t you gone on writing?”