"Then it was Jack's mother you wanted to help. You are an angel anyhow. I had really lost my head. The story was horrid, and I knew he'd tell it or hint it. It wasn't so bad," she added, as Alice half shrank back, "but that I'll tell it to you some time. Jack knows it."
XXV
THE WAKING OF A SPINSTER
Miss Wentstile was as accustomed to having her way as the sun is to rising. She had made up her mind that Alice was to marry Count Shimbowski, and what was more, she had made her intention perfectly plain to her friends. It is easily to be understood that her temper was a good deal tried when it became evident that she could not force her niece to yield. Miss Wentstile commanded, she remonstrated, she tried to carry her will with a high hand by assuming that Alice was betrothed, and she found herself in the end utterly foiled.
"Then you mean to disobey me entirely," she said to Alice one day.
"I have tried all my life to do what you wanted, Aunt Sarah," was the answer, "but this I can't do."
"You could do it if you chose."
Alice was silent; and to remain silent when one should offer some sort of a remark that may be disputed or found fault with or turned into ridicule is one of the most odious forms of insubordination.
"Why don't you speak?" demanded Miss Wentstile sharply. "Haven't I done enough for you to be able to get a civil answer out of you?"