Cheryl had changed from the blue linen tennis dress with the bare back. She looked almost like a cloistered nun now, in the simple black sheer frock with narrow white collar close about her firm slender throat. Her hair looked lighter, her skin a paler gold. As she turned to me her eyes under their long gold-flecked lashes were as blue as the great stalks of delphinium in Mrs. Jellyby’s little garden.
“I can’t find Mara,” she said. “I’m so afraid she’ll do something she’ll . . . regret.”
“She doesn’t think Alan Keane had anything to do with this?” I asked. “Or does she?”
Cheryl looked away.
“I don’t know how long anyone can go on, believing in someone,” she said quietly. “She’s held out so long, in this other business.”
“There’s not much doubt about that, is there?”
“Oh, I don’t know
