Page:A Good Woman (1927).pdf/324

 home." And then quickly his imagination set to work again, and with an air of brightness, as if the solution he had thought of vindicated him completely, he said, "Besides I wasn't bald in those days and nobody ever saw the scar. And the funny thing is that it was on that exact spot that I fell on the boat. It enlarged the scar." He looked at her in the way he had always done when he meant to turn her mind into more amiable channels. "Now, isn't that queer? It enlarged the scar."

It was clear that she meant not to be diverted from the business at hand. "I suppose that's as good a story as any. We've got to have a story of some kind. But you must stick to it, Jason, and don't make it too good. That's what you always do . . . make it too good." (Hadn't she, years ago, trapped him time after time in a lie, because he could not resist a too elaborate pattern of embroidery?)

She said, "But there's one thing I've got to do right away, and that is send word to Naomi to tell Philip."

"Who's Naomi?"

"She's Philip's wife."

"He's married?"

"He's been married for five years."

He made a clucking sound. "We're getting on, Em."

"And there's more than that. You're a grandfather."

The smooth face wrinkled into a rueful expression. "It's hard to think of myself as a grandfather. How old is the child, or the children?"

"They're twins."

He chuckled. "He did a good job, Philip." 