"Why so?"

"You can rarely interfere in other people's affairs without doing more
harm than good. If I had let them go their own way, Diane Eveleth
wouldn't have been put in a false position."

"Ah?"

"That's the other part of the story. If I had known, I should have left
the matter in her hands. She would have managed it better than I. As it
was, she made my bit of help superfluous."

"I should find it hard to credit that," he said, twisting his fingers
nervously.

"You won't when I tell you."

In the quiet, unaccentuated manner in which she had given her own share
in the action she gave Diane's. Shading her eyes with the hand-screen,
she was able to watch his play of feature, and note how the first forced
smile of bravado faded into an expression of crestfallen gravity.

"You see," she concluded, "they were frantic at Dorothea's failure to
appear. When you arrived they naturally thought it was she; and if Derek
Pruyn hadn't lost his head when he saw you, he wouldn't have tried to
thrust her out of sight as though she were caught in a crime. It was so
like a man to do it; a woman would have had a dozen ways of disarming
your suspicion, while he did the very thing to arouse it. I don't blame
you for thinking what you did--not in the least. I don't even blame you