“Look here, Halson,” Minver detained him, “how is it none of the rest of us have heard all those details?”

“I don’t know where you’ve been, Minver.  Everybody knows the main facts,” Halson said, escaping.

Wanhope observed, musingly:  “I suppose he’s quite right about the reciprocality of the offer, as we call it.  There’s probably, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, a perfect understanding before there’s an explanation.  In many cases the offer and the acceptance must really be tacit.”

“Yes,” I ventured, “and I don’t know why we’re so severe with women when they seem to take the initiative.  It’s merely, after all, the call of the maiden bird, and there’s nothing lovelier or more endearing in nature than that.”

“Maiden bird is good, Acton,” Minver approved.  “Why don’t you institute a class of fiction where the love-making is all done by the maiden birds, as you call them—­or the widow birds?  It would be tremendously popular with both sexes.  It would lift an immense responsibility off the birds who’ve been expected to shoulder it heretofore if it could be introduced into real life.”

Rulledge fetched a long, simple-hearted sigh.  “Well, it’s a charming story.  How well he told it!”

The waiter came again, and this time signalled to Minver.

“Yes,” he said, as he rose.  “What a pity you can’t believe a word Halson says.”

“Do you mean—­” we began simultaneously.

“That he built the whole thing from the ground up, with the start that we had given him.  Why, you poor things!  Who could have told him how it all happened?  Braybridge?  Or the girl?  As Wanhope began by saying, people don’t speak of their love-making, even when they distinctly remember it.”

“Yes, but see here, Minver!” Rulledge said, with a dazed look.  “If it’s all a fake of his, how came you to have heard of Braybridge paddling the canoe back for her?”

“That was the fake that tested the fake.  When he adopted it, I knew he was lying, because I was lying myself.  And then the cheapness of the whole thing!  I wonder that didn’t strike you.  It’s the stuff that a thousand summer-girl stories have been spun out of.  Acton might have thought he was writing it!”

He went away, leaving us to a blank silence, till Wanhope managed to say:  “That inventive habit of mind is very curious.  It would be interesting to know just how far it imposes on the inventor himself—­how much he believes of his own fiction.”

“I don’t see,” Rulledge said, gloomily, “why they’re so long with my dinner.”  Then he burst out:  “I believe every word Halson said!  If there’s any fake in the thing, it’s the fake that Minver owned to.”

VII

THE CHICK OF THE EASTER EGG