“Did you know that Starling is married?” I looked at him then, and my face must have answered for me. He closed his eyes in sympathy. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I should have known you didn’t. I should have found a better way to tell you.” And the simple comfort of a woman who came to my arms when she would, because she desired to be with me, and the sweet evenings of tales and music by the fire, and her dark merry eyes looking up into mine were suddenly guilty and deceptive and furtive. I was as foolish as I had ever been, no, even stupider, for the gullibility of a boy is fatuousness in
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