Yeah, I wasn't around before their relationship was revealed... I think Smiles might be the only one still visiting on a regular basis who was. But yeah, I just discounted it because I figured it couldn't have been an answer people would have guessed at the time.
Makes sense now. I just over thought the problem and saw unnecessary complexity as usual.
Of course people did know that Maytag wanted those relationships kept a secret so it should have made sense then.
@Furcas: Hard to tell, he was still insulting Maytag a bit but it's likely that despite her, his personality is still strongly geared towards cruelty, but granted he might have thought twice about doing something like that to Maytag now that their friends. I often wonder how friendly they'll be when/if they meet up again in the comic.