"So he told you?" I asked, trying not to act as if I cared a bit.
"Why, certainly," the Imp answered, with that wicked gleam in her eye. "He did as he said he would. I'd be glad to tell you, but, of course, I've promised not to."
"Did you ask him why he kept the other two pictures covered?" I inquired.
"Yes, I asked him that, too, but he said it was for a reason he couldn't explain at present."
The Imp wouldn't have told me if he _had_ explained. I'm positive of that. And what's more, I simply can't believe that he told her all about the other one. She can make things sound so mysterious, when there's really nothing to them at all. However, I can't be certain, even of this. Maybe he really did explain, though why he should make her promise not to tell is a puzzle.
I'm not going to think about it any more just now. It makes me too furious.
March 22. Such a strange, strange thing happened to-day. Dave went with me to see Louis this afternoon, for the Imp had to go on an errand to the village, and Carol was in the house with another severe cold. Dave went up first, stayed quite a while, and then went on home.
Miss Yvonne took me up and told me that the nurse was out for the afternoon, and that Monsieur was lying down in Louis's room. So, for the first time since his accident, I actually saw Louis without a lot of other people in the room. We chatted for a while about school matters and what we had all been doing while he was laid up. And Louis told me how much better he was, how he was soon going to be allowed to get up, and that the nurse was going in a few days. After that we were both quiet for a few moments. It was one of those pauses that sometimes come in conversation, which get so prolonged that you hardly know how to break them. Then, just to end the silence, I asked Louis why Monsieur had insisted on his being in this room, and how inconvenient it must have been for Monsieur. To my surprise, Louis became much excited and said:
"I can't think whatever made him do it that day! _I_ didn't want to be here. I'm horribly uncomfortable about it all the time. I _hate_ it! It would have been so much more sensible to have put me in my own room on the ground floor. And, Sue, what do you think?" Here Louis sank his voice to a whisper. "I came to myself one day, out of a sort of stupor that I'd been in, and found him kneeling by the side of the bed and actually _kissing my hand_! I was so astonished and disgusted that I snatched it away, weak as I was. He never said a word, but rose and walked out of the room. What does it all mean?"