“Do you think you have been quite fair to me, Virginia?” he asked, with gloomy dignity.
“I think so,” she answered, and touched him with the riposte: “I’m ready now to have you tell me when you expect to marry Aline Harley.”
His dignity collapsed like a pricked bladder. “How did you know?” he demanded, in astonishment.
“Oh well, I have eyes.”
“But I didn’t know—I thought—”
“Oh, you thought! You are a pair of children at the game,” this thousand-year-old young woman scoffed. “I have known for months that you worshiped each other.”
“If you mean to imply” he began severely.
“Hit somebody of your size, Warry,” she interrupted cheerfully, as to an infant. “If you suppose I am so guileless as not to know that you were coming here this afternoon to tell me you were regretfully compelled to give me up on account of a more important engagement, then you conspicuously fail to guess right. I read it in your note.”
He gave up attempting to reprove her. It did not seem feasible under the circumstances. Instead, he held out the hand of peace, and she took it with a laugh of gay camaraderie.
“Well,” he smiled, “it seems possible that we may both soon be subjects for congratulation. That just shows how things work around right. We never would have suited each other, you know.”