Evie ground her teeth, threw her clinched fists outward, and twitched her skirts about the room in the prettiest possible passion of righteous anger.
"But, darling," Miriam asked, in a puzzled voice, "what are you going to do about it?"
Evie wheeled round haughtily.
"Do about it? What would you expect me to do about it? I'm going to tell every one he didn't do it—that's what I'm going to do about it. But of course we're not to speak of it just yet—outside ourselves, you know. He's going to Buenos Aires to tell Uncle Jarrott he didn't do it—and when he comes back we're going to make it generally known. Oh, there's to be law about it—and everything. He means to change his name again to what it was before—Ford, the name was—and I must say, Miriam, I like that a good deal better than Strange, if you don't mind my telling you. It seems odd to have so many Stranges—and I must say I never could get used to the idea of having exactly the same name as yours. It was almost like not being married outside the family—and I should hate to marry a relation. That part of it comes as a pleasant surprise, do you see? I'd made up my mind to Strange, and thought there was no way of getting rid of it, unless I—but I wasn't looking ahead to anything of that kind. I hope I shall never—"
"So, darling, you're going to be true to him?"
"True to him? Of course I'm going to be true to him. Why shouldn't I be? I'm going to be more true to him now than I was before. He's so noble about it, too. I wish you could have seen the way he broke it to me. Aunt Queenie said she never saw anything so affecting, not even on the stage. She was there, you know. Herbert felt he couldn't go over it all twice, and he thought I should need some one to support me through the shock. I didn't—not a bit. But I wish you could have been there, just to see him."
"I can fancy it, dear."
"Of course I know now what you've been fidgeting about ever since he came to New York. He says you recognized him—that you'd seen him at Greenport. Oh, I knew there was something. But I must say, Miriam, I think you might have told me confidentially, and not let it come on me as such a blow as this. Not that I take it as a blow, though, of course, it upsets things terribly. We can't announce our engagement for ever so long, and Aunt Queenie is rushing round in the motor now to take back what she wrote to a few people yesterday. I can't imagine what she'll tell them, because I charged her on her sacred honor not to give them the idea it was broken off, although I'd rather they thought it was broken off than that I hadn't been engaged at all."
"Miss Jarrott takes it quietly, then?"
"Quietly! I wish you could see her. She thinks there never was anything so romantic. Why, she cried over him, and kissed him, and said she'd always be his friend if every one else in the world were to turn against him. As a matter of fact, the poor old dear is head over heels in love with him—do you see?—in that sort of old-maid way—you know the kind of thing I mean. She thinks there's nobody like him, and neither there is. I shall miss him frightfully while he's down there telling Uncle Jarrott. I shall skip half my invitations and go regularly into retreat till he comes back. There's lots more he's going to tell me then—all about what Popsey Wayne had to do with it—and everything. I'm glad he doesn't want to do it now, because my head is reeling as it is. I've so many things to think of—and so much responsibility coming on me all at once—and—"