Uncle Jimmie looked down at Jacqueline beside him. She could feel his eyes boring through her and she could feel herself shrinking smaller and smaller, till a crack would have held her.
“Well,” said Uncle Jimmie in the tone, she felt, in which he sent men to be court-martialed—a tone that left you flat, crushed under tons of righteous disapproval. “I’ll say that for a nickel-plated, triple-riveted Miss Mess-it you’ve broken the world’s record this trip.”
CHAPTER XLI
NIGHT OF JUDGMENT
They were all seated in the softly lighted parlor at The Chimnies—Cousin Penelope, stonily silent, Aunt Eunice, wiping her spectacles over and over, Aunt Edie, little and gray-eyed, with helpless, fluttery gestures—when Jacqueline, like a criminal in custody, walked in at Uncle Jimmie’s side.
An entrance all right, and drama, but not the kind Jacqueline wanted!
“Oh, Jackie!” cried Aunt Edie, as soon as she set eyes on her. “You dreadful child! What have you done now? What will you do next? Come here and kiss me! I hope you didn’t catch anything in that queer place. I’m so afraid of typhus in these gone-to-seed old townships.”
Aunt Edie was insulting New England, just as Cousin Penelope had expected her to do, but Cousin Penelope hadn’t the spirit left to do more than fling her a disdainful glance.
“Go say how-do-you-do to your Aunt Eunice,” Aunt Edie bade Jacqueline, “and tell her you’re sorry. You owe her all sorts of apologies. I shouldn’t think she’d ask you inside her house, after the way you’ve behaved.”
Jacqueline shrugged her shoulders. One had to put on indifference, if one didn’t want to bawl. She went to Great-aunt Eunice, made her little curtsy, and offered a limp hand.
“Well, well, Jacqueline,” said Aunt Eunice, being nice with an effort that did not escape Jacqueline, “we’re very glad to see you here at last. Now we’d better have dinner.”