But perhaps you know
all this already, since you've met her before?"
"I know the main facts?--yes," Leaver responded. His lips had taken on a
curiously tight set, since the car had left the corner. His eyes, under
their strongly marked brows, narrowed a little, as he looked out across a
field of corn yellowing in the sunlight. "She has visited more or less in
Baltimore, where she has been very much admired."
"Why 'has been'?" queried Burns. "She doesn't look like a 'has-been' to
me. More like very much of a 'now-and-here'--eh?"
"I mean only that since she has been thrown upon her own resources she
has applied herself closely to the study of photography, and has been
little seen in society."
"I imagine when she was seen she kept a few fellows guessing. She looks
to me as if she might have refused her full share of men."
"I have no doubt of it."
That which Burns would have enjoyed saying next he refrained from. But to
himself he made the observation: "By the signs I haven't much doubt you
were one of them, old man." Aloud he questioned innocently:
"You know her rather well?"
"Quite well."
"Your manner says 'Drop it,'" observed Burns, with a keen glance at a
side-face clean-cut against the landscape. "I've encountered that manner
before, and I'll take warning accordingly. This is a fine day, and it's
rather an interesting case I'm going to see, up this road.
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