"What nonsense?" I asked, getting ready to run.
"That you do not love him."
"Him?"
"James," she snapped irritably. "Do you suppose I mean the policeman?"
I looked over at Jimmy. She had got me by the hand, and Jimmy was making
frantic gestures to tell her the whole thing and be done with it. But
I had gone too far. The mill of the gods had crushed me already, and
I didn't propose to be drawn out hideously mangled and held up as an
example for the next two or three weeks, although it was clear enough
that Aunt Selina disapproved of me thoroughly, and would have been glad
enough to find that no tie save the board of health held us together.
And then Bella came in, and you wouldn't have known her. She had put on
a straight white woolen wrapper, and she had her hair in two long braids
down her back. She looked like a nice, wide-eyed little girl in her
teens, and she had some lobster salad and a glass of port on a tray.
When she saw the situation, she put the things down and had the
nastiness to stay and listen.
"I'm not blind," Aunt Selina said, with one eye on the tray. "You two
silly children adore each other; I saw some things last night."
Bella took a step forward; then she stopped and shrugged her shoulders.
Jim was purple.
"I saw you kiss her in the dining room, remember that!" Aunt Selina went
on, giving the screw another turn.
It was Bella's turn to be excited. She gave me one awful stare, then she
fixed her eyes on Jim.
"Besides," Aunt Selina went on, "you told me today that you loved her.
Don't deny it, James."
Bella couldn't keep quiet another instant. She came over and stood at
the foot of the bed.
"Please don't excite yourself, DEAR Miss Caruthers," she said in a voice
like ice. "Every one knows that he loves her; he simply overflows
with it. It--it is quite a by-word among their friends. They have been
sitting together in a corner all evening."
Yes, that was what she said; when I had not spoken to Jimmy the whole
time in the den. Bella was cattish, and she was jealous, too. I turned
on my heel and went to the door; then I turned to her, with my hand on
the knob.
"You have been misinformed," I said coldly. "You can not possibly know,
having spent three hours in a corner yourself--with Mr. Harbison." I
abhor jealousy in a woman.
Well, Aunt Selina ate all the lobster salad, and drank the port after
Bella had told her it was beef, iron and wine, and she slept all night,
and was able to sit up in a chair the next day, and was so infatuated
with Bella that she would not let her out of her sight. But that is
ahead of the story.