"
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.
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