She owned that to herself, and she got what comfort she could from
his making the affair a question of what Burnamy had done to Stoller
rather than of what Burnamy had said to her, and what she had answered
him. If she was not perfectly clear as to what she wanted to do, or
wished to have happen, there was now time and place in which she could
delay and make sure. The accepted theory of such matters is that people
know their minds from the beginning, and that they do not change them.
But experience seems to contradict this theory, or else people often act
contrary to their convictions and impulses. If the statistics were
accessible, it might be found that many potential engagements hovered in
a doubtful air, and before they touched the earth in actual promise were
dissipated by the play of meteorological chances.
When General Triscoe put down his napkin in rising he said that he would
step round to Pupp's and see if Stoller were still there. But on the way
he stepped up to Mrs. Adding's hotel on the hill, and he came back, after
an interval which he seemed not to have found long, to report rather
casually that Stoller had left Carlsbad the day before. By this time the
fact seemed not to concern Agatha herself very vitally.
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