"Two automobiles?"
"Very well. Any time."
"Oh, not at all, I assure you."
—all in a cool, don't-care little voice that I never in this wide world would have recognized as Miss Mayhew's voice. Then she hung up. And I stepped out of the cloak-closet. I took hold of her two shoulders and looked in her eyes. And I saw she was palpitating and trembling and breathless and pink.
"Marjorie Mayhew," I says, "I never knew that was your name, till just now when that Nice Voice asked for you. But stranger though you are to me—or more so—I want to say something to you: If you ever love—I don't say That Nice Voice, but Any Nice Voice, don't you never, never speak cold to it like you just done. No matter what—"
She looked at me, kind of sweet and kind of still, and long and deep. And I saw that we both knew what we both knew.
"I know," she says. "Folks are so foolish—oh, so foolish! I know it now. And yet—"
"And yet you young folks hurt love for pride all the time," I says. "And love is gold, and pride is clay. And some of you never find it out till too late."
"I know," she says in a whisper, "I know—" Then she looked up. "Twelve folks are coming here in two automobiles in about half an hour. The telephone was from Prescott—that's about ten miles, isn't it? It's the Hewitts. From the city—and some guests of theirs—"
"The Hewitts?" I says over. "From the city?"