"Bella, darling;—don't you know?" said the mother.
"I know nothing. Everybody keeps me in the dark, and I am badly used. What is it that he is doing?" Then Mrs. French tried to take the poor young woman in her arms, but Arabella would not submit to be embraced. "Don't!" she exclaimed. "Leave me alone. Nobody likes me, or cares a bit about me! Why is Cammy with him there, all alone?"
"I suppose he is asking her—to be—his wife." Then Arabella threw herself in despair upon the bed, and wept without any further attempt at control over her feelings. It was a death-blow to her last hope, and all the world, as she looked upon the world then, was over for her. "If I could have arranged it the other way, you know that I would," said the mother.
"Mamma," said Arabella, jumping up, "he shan't do it. He hasn't a right. And as for her,— Oh, that she should treat me in this way! Didn't he tell me the other night, when he drank tea here with me alone—"
"What did he tell you, Bella?"
"Never mind. Nothing shall ever make me speak to him again;—not if he married her three times over; nor to her. She is a nasty, sly, good-for-nothing thing!"
"But, Bella—"
"Don't talk to me, mamma. There never was such a thing done before since people—were—people at all. She has been doing it all the time. I know she has."
Nevertheless Arabella did sit down to tea with the two lovers that night. There was a terrible scene between her and Camilla; but Camilla held her own; and Arabella, being the weaker of the two, was vanquished by the expenditure of her own small energies. Camilla argued that as her sister's chance was gone, and as the prize had come in her own way, there was no good reason why it should be lost to the family altogether, because Arabella could not win it. When Arabella called her a treacherous vixen and a heartless, profligate hussy, she spoke out freely, and said that she wasn't going to be abused. A gentleman to whom she was attached had asked her for her hand, and she had given it. If Arabella chose to make herself a fool she might,—but what would be the effect? Simply that all the world would know that she, Arabella, was disappointed. Poor Bella at last gave way, put on her discarded chignon, and came down to tea. Mr. Gibson was already in the room when she entered it. "Arabella," he said, getting up to greet her, "I hope you will congratulate me." He had planned his little speech and his manner of making it, and had wisely decided that in this way might he best get over the difficulty.
"Oh yes;—of course," she said, with a little giggle, and then a sob, and then a flood of tears.