She stopped abruptly.
“Ah, I knew that like Washington you couldn’t tell a lie,” Cora laughed. “Well, then, may I make my little guess?”
“Oh, guess anything you like, if it gratifies a whim!” Yootha exclaimed, coloring slightly. “I suppose you are going to say that you think I am in love! Why do married women always imagine that every girl they meet is bound to be in love? It’s a perfectly rotten notion. Men as a rule bore me stiff, as I have often told you. The majority of the men I meet, except a few in Bohemian circles, seem not to have half-a-dozen original ideas of their own.”
“Isn’t that rather tautologic? Well, yes, many men are dull, that I admit, but all are not dull, even those who don’t live, or, so far as I know, even mix in what you call Bohemian circles. Also there are men, you know, who to some appear dull, but to others....
“Do you remember a little lunch party at the Ritz some time before the Armistice, Yootha?” she went on. “We were invited by Archie La Planta, and among the people he introduced to us was a man who to most of us seemed unutterably dull—beautiful Mrs. Mervyn-Robertson, for instance, had difficulty in concealing the fact that this man bored her intensely, and yet I am convinced that even that day Captain Charlie Preston attracted you in a way you had never before been attracted by anyone, and——”
She stopped for her friend’s expression had suddenly completely changed. She was looking up at Cora now with shining eyes, while her lips, slightly parted, quivered a little as her breath came rather quickly. Then all at once, as though acting on impulse, she gripped Cora’s wrists.
“Who told you?” she asked in a quick undertone. “I thought nobody even suspected.”
“Naturally you would. Women in love always think, and often do, the wrong thing. Good heavens, Yootha, I’ve known it for months! I suspected it the first time you and he met, that day at the Ritz, and the only thing I am surprised at is that you should have kept me in ignorance—or so you thought—all this time. Has he said anything yet?”
“Said anything? Of course not! What a question to ask!”
“Yes, I suppose it is silly to ask a girl if a man who is obviously in love with her has asked her to——”