Aunt Mary’s eyes snapped.
“Jack!” she said, with an accent that seemed to split the short word in two.
After a little she spoke again.
“Lucinda, it’s all been owin’ to the city an’ this last is all city. ’F I cared a rap what happened to him after this I’d never let him go near a place over two thousand again as long as he lived. It’s no use tryin’ to explain things to you, Lucinda, because it never has been any use an’ never will be—an’ anyway, I’m done with it all. I sh’ll want you for a witness when I’m through with Mr. Stebbins, and then you can get some marmalade out for tea an’ we’ll all live in peace hereafter.”
Joshua returned with Mr. Stebbins and the latter gentleman went to work with a will and willed Jack out of Aunt Mary’s. Later Joshua took him home again. Lucinda got the marmalade out of the cellar and Aunt Mary had it with her tea. It was a bitter tea—unsugared indeed—and the days that followed matched.
Chapter Ten
The Woes of the Disinherited.
It was some days later on in the world’s history that Holloway was calling on Bertha Rosscott.
They were sitting in that comfortable library previously referred to and were sweetly unaware that any untoward series of incidents had ever led to an invasion of their privacy.
Holloway lay well back in a sleepy-hollow chair and looked indolently, lazily handsome; his hostess was up on—well up on the divan, and he had the full benefit of her admirable bottines and their dainty heels and buckles.
“Honestly,” he said, looking her over with a gaze that was at once roving and well content, “honestly, I think that every time I see you, you appear more attractive than the time before.”