Page:Harvey O'Higgins--Silent Sam and other stories.djvu/76

64. It did not awe her now; it seemed to amuse her; and she laughed, clasping her hands in her bosom as if the humor of it tickled her there.

"You went to England."

She nodded. And came back again on the next boat—by way of Montreal." She added, as a woman's postcript [sic]: "I was married there—in Montreal."

"Married?" He bent upon her a penetrating, quick scrutiny. "Married!"

She continued to hug herself with that unchanging girlish joyousness.

"Don't tell me you 've been such a fool."

She smiled and smiled, twinkling at him.

"Who is it?"

"Oh, a dear!" she gurgled. "Nobody that you know. A love!"

He thrust his hands, cap and all, into the pockets of his ulster. "So that was it! I might have guessed it. And he supports you—does he?—in this abode of luxury."

Her look deepened into a sort of happy pity of him. "He works for me, and I work for him."

"Did you know where he was going to bring you when you—married him?"

"I picked it out. We had it ready before I sailed. I went to England just to throw you all off the track."

"And you gave up your—your career—for this?"

She considered him a moment with her untroubled gray eyes. "Oh, you would n't understand," she said;