"You know I haven't," I said gently.
That took some of the starch out of him, but he eyed me suspiciously.
"Why don't you ask me where I got the coat, Bishop Van Wagenen?" I
said, leaning over to him.
He started. I suppose he'd just that moment remembered my leaving it
behind that day at Mrs. Ramsay's.
"Lord bless me!" he cried anxiously. "You haven't--you haven't again--"
"No, I haven't." Ah, Maggie, dear, it was worth a lot to me to be able
to say that "no" to him. "It was given to me. Guess who gave it to
me."
He shook his head.
"My husband!"
Maggie Monahan, he didn't even blink. Perhaps in the Bishop's set
husbands are not uncommon, or very likely they don't know what a
husband like Fred Obermuller means.
"I congratulate you, my child, or--or did it--were you--"
"Why, I'd never seen Fred Obermuller then," I cried. "Can't you tell a
difference, Bishop?" I pleaded. "Don't I look like a--an imposing
married woman now? Don't I seem a bit--oh, just a bit nicer?"
His eyes twinkled as he bent to look more closely at me.
"You look--you look, my little girl, exactly like the pretty, big-eyed,
wheedling-voiced child I wished to have for my own daughter."