“Yes?” he said appreciatively. “And what happened?”
“I fancy,” I continued, “that she always met me on my side of the stile,
so that we always had to get over it.”
Bassishaw seemed to approve the strategy.
“Nice girl?” he asked.
“She combined,” I replied, “the harmlessness of the dove with the wisdom
of the serpent, for she used to feel tired when we got there, and rest.
There was just room for two.”
Caroline was interested.
“And when was this, Rollo?” she asked.
“My dear Carrie,” I returned, “you had just begun German; you were at
school. Well, this woman of mine would pull a flower to pieces, or light
a cigarette for me, or some such foolishness. She knew the exact
distance at which her hair would touch my face if it were a little
tumbled. And so on.”
Millicent made the criticism that the least she could have done under
the circumstances was to have sprained her ankle.
“And who was it?” Carrie asked eagerly.
The woman who presumed to condemn my carrying-on with Dolly Hemingway
and Violet Mellish sat smiling in frank innocence. She, whose ignorance
of such matters was to be scrupulously respected, sat with
unconsciousness on her brow, and gave graceful attention to my story.
She, who had called me a belated bachelor, who had spoken of my failing
years and my perspective of hesitating singleness, and, above all, whose
memory needed no hint as to what I was going to say, dissembled without
a quiver.
“Who was it?” Caroline repeated.
“The name is the least essential part of the affair,” I replied. “We are
concerned with the stile.”
“Yes, the stile,” Millicent said. “What happened?”
“Were she to ask me herself, I should only whisper,” I returned.
She leaned back and laughed outright. “You are too considerate on her
account to make the story very interesting,” she remarked. “I swear I
could finish it better myself. One day you tried to kiss her.”
Millicent had chosen the hazardous line of safety. She had told the
truth.