At any rate, Sonny had been most discreet. As he stared
at the ashes, Barton pondered how much of his own younger life,
from his bachelor days, resided in old MacIlwaine's keeping. Next,
Barton found himself blushing, to himself, at himself. If
MacIlwaine knew so much of the private lives of community figures,
then had not he, her husband and protector and shielder, planted in
MacIlwaine's brain a suspicion of Ida?
"Anything on your mind?" Lee asked his wife that evening, as he
stood holding her wrap while she put the last touches to her
dressing.
This was in line with their old and successful compact of
frankness, and he wondered, while he waited her answer, why he had
refrained so long from asking her.
"No," she smiled. "Nothing particular. Afterwards . . . perhaps .
. . "
She became absorbed in gazing at herself in the mirror, while she
dabbed some powder on her nose and dabbed it off again.
"You know my way, Lee," she added, after the pause. "It takes me
time to gather things together in my own way--when there are things
to gather; but when I do, you always get them.
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