Page:Herbert Jenkins - The Rain Girl.djvu/163

 "But why not?"

"I'm sorry," he said regretfully.

"It does seem rather horrid of me—now," she admitted, slightly stressing the word "now," "but I didn't leave 'The Two Dragons' till nearly eleven and"

"Thank you," said Beresford simply.

"Why did you give up your tramp?" she enquired irrelevantly.

"Why did you give up yours?" he countered.

"I had to go to London."

"So did I."

"But I thought you had left London for good," she persisted.

"So did I."

"Yet" she paused.

"I was tramping exactly one day," he said, filling in the blank.

She nodded; but her eyes continued to interrogate him.

"Then I had to return to London," he repeated.

"I had arranged to be in London on May 5th," she volunteered.

"And I had arranged never to be in London again." He smiled at her obvious bewilderment.

"But if you had arranged never to be in London again, why?"

"Did I return?" he finished the sentence for her.

Again she nodded.

"Have you never done anything that you cannot explain to yourself?" he questioned.