solidity and despatch, and my
Aurora, as the school-teacher would say, came in his whirling car, and
in I popped, and we had a corking time. He let me drive a little. You
see, the machine is a--Oh, well, Lorraine said, specially, I was not to
describe automobiles. That seems such a stupid restrictiveness, but it's
a case of cookies, so I'll cut that out.

There really wasn't much else to tell, only that Dr. Denbigh started
right in and raked out the inmost linings of my soul about Peggy and
Harry Goward. It wasn't exactly cross-examination, because he wasn't
cross, yet he fired the questions at me like a cannon, and I answered
quick, you bet. Dr. Denbigh knows what he wants, and he means to get it.
Just by accident toward the last I let out about that day in the winter
when they were chaffing Aunt Elizabeth at the table about him, and how
he'd taken her out in the machine, and how mother had said there might
be an engagement to write Peggy about.

"Oh!" said Dr. Denbigh. "Oh!--oh!"

Funny, the way he went on saying, "Oh! Oh!"

I thought if that interested him he might like to hear about Peg
throwing a fit in her room after, so I told him that, and how I tried
to comfort her, and how unreasonable she was. And what do you suppose
he said? He looked at me a minute with his eyebrows away down, and his
mouth jammed together, and then he brought out:

"You little devil!"

That's not the worst he said, either. I guess mother wouldn't let me go
out with him if she knew he used profanity--Maria wouldn't, anyway. I
have decided I won't tell them. It's the only time I ever caught him.
The other thing is this. He said to himself--but out loud--I think he
had forgotten me: "So they made her believe I liked her aunt better."
And then, in a minute: "She said it would break her heart--bless her!"
And two or three other interlocutory remarks like that, meaning nothing
in particular. And then all of a sudden he brought his fist down on
his knee with a bang and said, "Damn Aunt Elizabeth!"--not loud, but
compressed and explodingly, you know. I looked at him, and he said: "Beg
pardon. Billy. Your aunt's a very charming woman, but I mean it. I only
asked her to go out with me because she talked more about Peggy than
anybody else would," he went on.

I thought a minute, and put two and two together pretty quick. "You mind
about Peggy's being engaged to Harry Goward, don't you?" I asked him;
for I saw right through him then.

He lo