"I am thinking of you," he reminded her, reverting to the impossibility of associating that thought with the other.
"Thank you; I am glad you can make even that much of a concession. It is more than another would make." Then, with the unexpectedness which was all her own: "I am still curious to know what you did to Mr. Wingfield: that day when he so nearly lost his life in the laboratory?"
"At what time in that day?" he asked, meaning to dodge if he could.
"You know--when you had him here in your office, with Jerry and Mr. Bromley."
"I don't remember all the things I did to him, that day and before it. I believe I made him welcome--when I had to. He hasn't been using his welcome much lately, though."
"No; not since that day that came near ending so terribly. I'd like to know what happened."
"Nothing--of any consequence. I believe I told you that Wingfield was boring us with the plot of a new play."
"Yes; and you said you couldn't remember it."
"I don't want to remember it. Let's talk of something else. Is your anxiety--the trouble you refuse to share with me--any lighter?"
"Are you still determined not to let me efface it for you?"
"You couldn't; no one can. It can never be effaced."
His smile was the man's smile of superior wisdom.
"Don't we always say that when the trouble is personal?"
She ignored the query completely, and her rejoinder was totally irrelevant--or it seemed to be.
"You think I came down here to ask you to send over to Alta Vista for Professor Gardiner. That was merely an excuse. I wanted to beg you once again to suspend judgment--not to be vindictive."
Again he dissimulated. "I'm not vindictive: why should I be?"
"You have every reason; or, at least, you believe you have." She leaned over the arm of the driving-seat and searched his eyes pleadingly: "Please tell me: how much did Mr. Wingfield find out?"
It was blankly impossible to tell her the hideous truth, or anything remotely approaching it. But his parrying of her question was passing skilless.
"Not being a mind-reader, I can't say what Wingfield knows--or thinks he knows. Our disagreement turned upon his threat to make literary material out of--well, out of matters that were in a good measure my own private and personal affairs."