"I think that they came inadvertently near it, once or twice, and remembered just in time that I didn't know about it."
"But since you do know pretty much about it!" she laughed.
I shook my head. "There's something else, something that's turned up; the sort of thing that upsets calculations. And I merely hoped that you'd know."
On those last words of mine she gave me quite an extraordinary look, and then, as if satisfied with what she saw in my face.--
"They don't talk to me."
It was an assurance, it was true, it had the ring of truth, that evident genuineness which a piece of real confidence always possesses; she meant me to know that we were in the same boat of ignorance to-day. And yet, as I rose from my lunch and came forward to settle for it, I was aware of some sense of defeat,
