Page:The Soft Side (New York, The Macmillan Company, 1900).djvu/115

Rh though seemingly disconcerted by what threatened to be practically a change of subject, replied that he didn't care a hang; so that, leaving the room, they passed together down to the court and through other battered courts and crooked ways. The dim London sunshine in the great surrounded garden had a kindness, and the hum of the town was as hindered and yet as present as the faint sense of spring. The two men stopped together before a bench, but neither for the moment sat down. 'Do you mean she has told you?' Chilver at last brought out.

'No—it's just what she hasn't done.'

'Then how the deuce am I wrong?'

'She has admitted that there is something.'

Chilver markedly wondered. 'Something? What?'

'That's just what I want to know.'

'Then you have asked her?'

Braddle hesitated. 'I couldn't resist my curiosity, my anxiety—call it what you will. I've been too worried. I put it to her the day after you were down there.'

'And how did you put it?'

'Oh, just simply, brutally, disgustingly. I said: "Isn't there something about yourself—something or other that has happened to you—that you're keeping back?"

Chilver was attentive, but not solemn. 'Well?'

'Oh, she admitted it.'

'And in what terms?'

'"Well, since you really drive me to the wall, there is something."'

Chilver continued to consider. 'And is that all she says?'

'No—she says she will tell me.'

'Ah well, then!' And Chilver spoke with a curious—in fact, a slightly ambiguous—little renewed sound of superiority.

'Yes,' his friend ruefully returned, 'but not, you see, for six months.'

'Oh, I see! I see!' Chilver thoughtfully repeated. 'So you've got to wait—which I admit perfectly that you must