"Game and rubber," she said. "Watch Dal, Max; he will cheat in the score if he can. Kit, don"t have another clam while I am in this house. I have eaten so many lately my waist rises and falls with the tide."
"You have a stunning color, Kit," Lollie said. "You are really quite superb. Who made that gown?"
"Where have you been hiding, du kleine?" Max whispered, under cover of showing me the evening paper, with a photograph of the house and a cross at the cellar window where we had tried to escape. "If one day in the house with you, Kit, puts me in this condition, what will a month do?"
From beyond the curtain of a sort of alcove, lighted with a red-shaded lamp, came a hum of conversation, Bella"s cool, even tones, and a heavy masculine voice. They were laughing; I could feel my chin go up. He was not even hiding his shame.
"Max," I asked, while the others clamored for him and the game, "has any one been up through the house since dinner? Any of the men?"
He looked at me curiously.
"Only Harbison," he replied promptly. "Jim has been eating his heart out in the den every since dinner; Dal played the Sonata Appasionata backward on the pianola--he wanted to put through one of Anne"s lingerie waists, on a wager that it would play a tune; I played c.r.a.ps with Lollie, and Flannigan has been washing dishes. Why?"
Well, that was conclusive, anyhow. I had had a faint hope that it might have been a joke, although it had borne all the evidences of sincerity, certainly. But it was past doubting now; he had lain in wait for me at the landing, and had kissed me, ME, when he thought I was Jimmy"s wife.
Oh, I must have been very light, very contemptible, if that was what he thought of me!
I went into the library and got a book, but it was impossible to read, with Jimmy lying on the couch giving vent to something between a sigh and a groan every few minutes. About eleven the cards stopped, and Bella said she would read palms. She began with Mr. Harbison, because she declared he had a wonderful hand, full of possibilities; she said he should have been a great inventor or a playwright, and that his att.i.tude to women was one of homage, respect, almost reverence. He had the courage to look at me, and if a glance could have killed he would have withered away.
When Jimmy proffered his hand, she looked at it icily. Of course she could not refuse, with Mr. Harbison looking on.
"Rather negative," she said coldly. "The lines are obscured by cushions of flesh; no heart line at all, mentality small, self-indulgence and irritability very marked."
Jim held his palm up to the light and stared at it.
"Gad!" he said. "Hardly safe for me to go around without gloves, is it?"
It was all well enough for Jim to laugh, but he was horribly hurt. He stood around for a few minutes, talking to Anne, but as soon as he could he slid away and went to bed. He looked very badly the next morning, as though he had not slept, and his clothes quite hung on him. He was actually thinner. But that is ahead of the story.
Max came to me while the others were sitting around drinking nightcaps, and asked me in a low tone if he could see me in the den; he wanted to ask me something. Dal overheard.
"Ask her here," he said. "We all know what it is, Max. Go ahead and we"ll coach you."
"Will you coach ME?" I asked, for Mr. Harbison was listening.
"The woman does not need it," Dal retorted. And then, because Max looked angry enough really to propose to me right there, I got up hastily and went into the den. Max followed, and closing the door, stood with his back against it.
"Contrary to the general belief, Kit," he began, "I did NOT intend to ask you to marry me."
I breathed easier. He took a couple of steps toward me and stood with his arms folded, looking down at me. "I"m not at all sure, in fact, that I shall ever propose to you," he went on unpleasantly.
"You have already done it twice. You are not going to take those back, are you, Max?" I asked, looking up at him.
But Max was not to be cajoled. He came close and stood with his hand on the back of my chair. "What happened on the roof tonight?" He demanded hoa.r.s.ely.
"I do not think it would interest you," I retorted, coloring in spite of myself.
"Not interest me! I am shut in this blasted house; I have to see the only woman I ever loved--REALLY loved," he supplemented, as he caught my eye, "pretend she is another man"s wife. Then I sit back and watch her using every art--all her beauty--to make still another man love her, a man who thinks she is a married woman. If Harbison were worth the trouble, I would tell him the whole story, Aunt Selina be--obliterated!"
I sat up suddenly.
"If Harbison were worth the trouble!" I repeated. What did he mean? Had he seen--
"I mean just this," Max said slowly. "There is only one unaccredited member of this household; only one person, save Flannigan, who was locked in the furnace room, one person who was awake and around the house when Anne"s jewels went, only one person in the house, also, who would have any motive for the theft."
"Motive?" I asked dully.
"Poverty," Max threw at me. "Oh, I mean comparative poverty, of course.
Who is this fellow, anyhow? Dal knew him at school, traveled with him through India. On the strength of that he brings him here, quarters him with decent people, and wonders when they are systematically robbed!"
"You are unjust!" I said, rising and facing him. "I do not like Mr.
Harbison--I--I hate him, if you want to know. But as to his being a thief, I--think it is quite as likely that you took the necklace."
Max threw his cigarette into the fire angrily.
"So that is how it is!" he mocked. "If either of us is the thief, it is I! You DO hate him, don"t you?"
I left him there, flushed with irritation, and joined the others. Just as I entered the room, Betty burst through the hall door like a cyclone, and collapsed into a chair. "She"s a mean, cantankerous old woman!" she declared, feeling for her handkerchief. "You can take care of your own Aunt Selina, Jim Wilson. I will never go near her again."
"What did you do? Poison her?" Dallas asked with interest.
"G--got camphor in her eyes," snuffed Betty. "You never--heard such a noise. I wouldn"t be a trained nurse for anything in the world. She--she called me a hussy!"
"You"re not going to give her up, are you, Betty?" Jim asked imploringly. But Betty was, and said so plainly.
"Anyhow, she won"t have me back," she finished, "and she has sent for--guess!"
"Have mercy!" Dal cried, dropping to his knees. "Oh, fair ministering angel, she has not sent for me!"
"No," Betty said maliciously. "She wants Bella--she"s crazy about her."
Chapter XI. I MAKE A DISCOVERY
Really, I have left Aunt Selina rather out of it, but she was important as a cause, not as a result; at least at first. She came out strong later. I believe she was a very nice old woman, with strong likes and prejudices, which she was perfectly willing to pay for. At least, I only presume she had likes; I know she had prejudices.
n.o.body every understood why Bella consented to take Betty"s place with Aunt Selina. As for me, I was too much engrossed with my own affairs to pay the invalid much attention. Once or twice during the day I had stopped in to see her, and had been received frigidly and with marked disapproval. I was in disgrace, of course, after the scene in the dining room the night before. I had stood like a naughty child, just inside the door, and replied meekly when she said the pillows were overstuffed, and why didn"t I have the linen slips rinsed in starch water? She laid the blame of her illness on me, as I have said before, and she made Jim read to her in the afternoon from a book she carried with her, Coals of Fire on the DOMESTIC Hearth, marking places for me to read.
She sent for me that night, just as I had taken off my gown; so I threw on a dressing gown and went in. To my horror, Jim was already there. At a gesture from Aunt Selina, he closed the door into the hall and tiptoed back beside the bed, where he sat staring at the figures on the silk comfort.
Aunt Selina"s first words were:
"Where"s that flibberty-gibbet?"
Jim looked at me.
"She must mean Betty," I explained. "She has gone to bed, I think."
"Don"t--let--her--in--this--room--again," she said, with awful emphasis.