“You folks expect me?” he went on.

“Oh, yes,” she cried, almost with vehemence.  “Why, we’ve looked for you every day.”

“’See,” he said, “how long have they been married?”

Lulu flushed as she answered:  “Fifteen years.”

“And a year before that the first one died—­and two years they were married,” he computed.  “I never met that one.  Then it’s close to twenty years since Bert and I have seen each other.”

“How awful,” Lulu said, and flushed again.

“Why?”

“To be that long away from your folks.”

Suddenly she found herself facing this honestly, as if the immensity of her present experience were clarifying her understanding:  Would it be so awful to be away from Bert and Monona and Di—­yes, and Ina, for twenty years?

“You think that?” he laughed.  “A man don’t know what he’s like till he’s roamed around on his own.”  He liked the sound of it.  “Roamed around on his own,” he repeated, and laughed again.  “Course a woman don’t know that.”

“Why don’t she?” asked Lulu.  She balanced a pie on her hand and carved the crust.  She was stupefied to hear her own question.  “Why don’t she?”

“Maybe she does.  Do you?”

“Yes,” said Lulu.

“Good enough!” He applauded noiselessly, with fat hands.  His diamond ring sparkled, his even white teeth flashed.  “I’ve had twenty years of galloping about,” he informed her, unable, after all, to transfer his interests from himself to her.

“Where?” she asked, although she knew.

“South America.  Central America.  Mexico.  Panama.”  He searched his memory.  “Colombo,” he superadded.

“My!” said Lulu.  She had probably never in her life had the least desire to see any of these places.  She did not want to see them now.  But she wanted passionately to meet her companion’s mind.

“It’s the life,” he informed her.

“Must be,” Lulu breathed.  “I——­” she tried, and gave it up.

“Where you been mostly?” he asked at last.

By this unprecedented interest in her doings she was thrown into a passion of excitement.

“Here,” she said.  “I’ve always been here.  Fifteen years with Ina.  Before that we lived in the country.”

He listened sympathetically now, his head well on one side.  He watched her veined hands pinch at the pies.  “Poor old girl,” he was thinking.

“Is it Miss Lulu Bett?” he abruptly inquired.  “Or Mrs.?”

Lulu flushed in anguish.

“Miss,” she said low, as one who confesses the extremity of failure.  Then from unplumbed depths another Lulu abruptly spoke up.  “From choice,” she said.

He shouted with laughter.

“You bet!  Oh, you bet!” he cried.  “Never doubted it.”  He made his palms taut and drummed on the table.  “Say!” he said.

Lulu glowed, quickened, smiled.  Her face was another face.

“Which kind of a Mr. are you?” she heard herself ask, and his shoutings redoubled.  Well!  Who would have thought it of her?