"It's horrible!"
"What? Don't stand out here with those bare arms, Bella." He was
pulling his own shirt-sleeves down over his glistening bronze forearms
as he spoke.
"We can't talk in the house," she said, "and I've got to talk. I--Do
you know what Hugh's doing--what he's telling that girl? What he's
letting her believe?"
Pete shook his head, but at the same time turned his blue eyes away
from her toward the glowing west.
"Lies," said Bella. She laughed a short, explosive laugh. "He's got
his ideal audience at last--a blind one. She thinks he's young and
handsome and heroic. Pete, she thinks he's a hero. She thinks he's
buried himself out here for the sake of somebody else. Oh, it's a
regular romance, and it's been going on for hours--it's still going
on. By now he believes it all himself. He's putting in the details.
And Sylvie: 'Oh!' she's saying, and 'Ah, Mr. Garth, how you must have
suffered! How wonderful you are!' And--look at me Pete--do you want
to know what we are--according to him--you and I?"
He did not turn his eyes from the west, even when she shook his arm.
"I'm a dried-up mummy of a woman--faithful?--yes, I'm faithful--an
old servant.
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