“That Vera could lose her temper?” I asked.
Clive continued to stare.
“It comes to that, doesn’t it? What else can it mean?” He looked now at his wife. “To speak like that to you, Mollie! And when she’s been saying she wanted so awfully to make real friends with you.”
Mollie, I saw, was dismayed. The triumph had been too complete. She could not keep up with it.
“I am sure that Lady Vera is very badly overwrought about something,” she said. “She wanted particularly to be alone and she found us there, and it put her on edge.” Actually she was trying to patch up his fallen angel for him.
“But she told me to wait there for her.—Sent me off to wait for her when those people came,” said Clive. “It seems to me that it was you she minded finding. And yet she’s been going on about your never coming to talk to her. She’s been going on about it like anything.” He caught himself up, blushing, and I saw that Vera was all revealed to him. I hardly needed to pluck another pinion from her, though I didn’t resist the temptation to do so, saying:
“You see, Vera is rather jealous. She can’t bear sharing things—her friends of her dream-garden. She liked to have you there, but she didn’t like to have Mollie there. Did she tell you she wanted to make friends with Mollie? She’s never taken any pains to show it, has she?”
“Oh, please, Judith!” Mollie implored.
“But he sees it all now, Mollie, so why shouldn’t I say it?” I inquired. “Her point has been, Captain Thornton, to keep you in and to keep Mollie out, and she very nearly succeeded in doing it.”
“Please, Judith! It’s not only that. She’s been such a real friend to you, Clive! I’m sure she is overwrought about something, and it will be all right when you next meet her.” But Mollie pleaded in vain.