a little more
pleasant on my side than on yours--but even so it's _so_ nice to think
that nothing has ever happened that either of us could really regret.

"Just remember that the only person I could incriminate you to would be
Mr. Piper, and not even there very much, due to Sargent's melodramatic
appearance in the middle of dinner. But I shan't even there--it would
mean incriminating myself a little too much too, don't you know? and
even if the apartment here does get a trifle lonely one evening and
another, I have got to be extraordinarily fond of it and I couldn't have
nearly as nice a one--or as competent an Elizabeth--on what they pay me
on 'Mode.' So I'll keep it, I think, if you don't mind.

"But that may make you a little more comfortable when you think things
over--and I'm sure we all deserve to be very comfortable indeed for
quite a long while after the very trying time we've just been through.

"_Good_-by, and I assure you that even if I shall never be able to think
of you in the future except as all wrapped up in the middle of
those absurd towels, I shall think of you quite kindly though rather
ridiculously nevertheless. And now if you will just run away a minute
and wait down in that car of Sargent's that Oliver--borrowed--so
effectively--because I must have one motherly word with Oliver alone
before we part forever! Thank you so _much_! _Good_-by!"

XLIII

So Oliver was left alone with her, he didn't know why. He noticed,
however, that when she came to talk to him, though it was still with
lightness, she was at no particular effort any longer to make the
lightness anything but a method of dealing with wounds.

"Mr. Billett does not seem quite to appreciate exactly how much your
timely pugilistics did for him," she observed. "Or exactly how they
might have affected you."

Oliver set his jaw, rather. He was hardly going to discuss what Ted
might or might not owe him with Mrs. Severance. Hardly.

"No, I suppose you wouldn't," she said uncannily. Then she spoke
again and this time if the tone was airy it was with the airiness of a
defeated swordsman apologizing for having been killed by such a clumsy
stroke of fence.

"But I have some--comprehension--of just what you did. And besides--I
seem to have a queer foible for telling the truth just now. Odd, isn't
it, when I've been lying so successfully all evening?"

"Very successfully," said Oliver, and, to his astonishment, saw her
wince.

"Ye