"Why, what's the matter?" Deb climbed on the bed, and tried to lift the half-buried head to her breast—a signal for the pent-up grief to burst forth. "Molly, sweetheart, what's all this about?"
"Oh, my love! my love!" keened Mary wildly. "Oh, Deb! oh, Deb! He was my all, and he's dead, and I can't bear it—I can't! I can't!"
Deb pursed her lips, and the colour rose in her clear cheek. She saw the situation, so pathetic and so ignominious! SHE could not understand a woman falling in love with, and then breaking her heart for, a man who had never cared for her. But then Deb's face was not heavy and bricky, with prominent cheek-bones, and a forehead four inches high.
"My precious," she crooned, as tenderly as if she understood it all, and as if her immense pity was not mixed with contempt—"don't, don't! It doesn't matter about me, but don't let the others think—It would be too undignified, darling—a casual acquaintance—though a dear, good boy as ever lived—"
"There was nobody like him, Deb, and he was my all—"
"No, no, Mary—"
"You don't know, Debbie—oh, nobody knows!" And wrapping her head in her arms again, Mary abandoned herself to her despair.
Deb got off the bed, lit dressing-table candles, and poured water and eau de Cologne into a wash-basin. She returned with a fragrant sponge, with which she stroked what she could reach of her sister's face.
"Come now," said she briskly, "you must have a little pride, dear. You mustn't give way like this—for a man who did not—and you know he did not—"
Mary broke in with sudden passion, lifting her distorted countenance to the cruel light.