"Do you mean to say that--that you are going along in the _Andromeda_?"
she asked faintly.
"It is even so--more is the pity. I had committed myself to Bonteck, in
a way, before I knew the names on his passenger list."
"And if you had known, you would have refused?"
"I don't know. Most likely I should; and not altogether out of
consideration for you. You see, I am quite frank."
"You are; most refreshingly frank. One might have hoped that time,
and--and----"
----"And absence and new fields and faces, and all that, would make
me forget," I finished for her. "Unhappily, they haven't. But that is
neither here nor there. Though I have kept pretty well out of the
civilized world for the past three years, there has been a word now and
then from home. Tell me plainly, Connie--how much does Jerry Dupuyster
know?"
"He knows that three years ago we were engaged to be married, you and
I." The cool voice trembled a little, but it was still well under
control.
"That is better," I commented with a sigh of relief; and it was better
because, if Jerry hadn't known, there would have been chances for
hideous complications on the proposed cruise of the _Andromeda_, or at
least, in some inchoate way, I felt there would. "Does Jerry know why
it was broken off?" I went on.
"He thinks he does."
"Which is to say that he accepts your Aunt Mehitable's version of it;
the one she published broadcast among our friends--that, without any
cause assigned, we simply agreed to disagree?"
"I suppose so."
Silence for a square or so, broken only by the drumming of the taxi's
motor. Then I took the bull by the horns.
"Shall I tell Bonteck that, for reasons which I don't care to explain,
I shall have to drop out of this badly mixed ship's company of his?"
The cool voice had fully regained its even tones when she said: "Why
should you?"
"There is no 'why' unless you care to interpose one of your own making.
But I should think, with Jerry Dupuyster along----"
"The _Andromeda_ is a reasonably roomy little ship," was the calm
retort. "And, besides, there are enough of us to afford protection--the
protection of a crowd. If you have promised Bonteck, you can hardly
break with him at the last moment, can you?"
"You don't care, then?"
"Why should I care? What is done is done, and can't be helped. Aunt
Mehitable thinks I ought to marry; I suppose she thinks I owe it to her
to marry and set up an establishment of my own. Perhaps I do owe it to
her. I've been a charge upon her generosity all my life."
"So you are going to marry Jerry Dupuyster, a lisping club-lizard
who apes the English so hard that he forgets that he has a string of
American ancestors as long as your arm?" I flamed out.
"Well, if I am, what is it to you, Dick Preble? Or to any one else
besides Jerry and me? Also, I might ask what right I have given you to
put me upon the rack?"
"None; none whatever," I admitted gloomily. "Still, I have a right,
of a sort--the right of the first man. You seem conveniently and
successfully to have forgotten. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to
forget, though I have tried all of the customary antidotes."
"Other women?" she asked, with the faintest possible touch of malice.