“Oh, it was just as I thought,” said Davis, disgustedly. “Sis knew all about it. She fired up and told me to mind my own business. None of my family takes me seriously. Mother thinks this is just a boy and girl affair. It’s not—I’m a man and I’m going to be treated as a man!”
“Wait a minute,” said Selden; “you’re getting ahead of your story. Tell me exactly what you said to your sister.”
“I asked her if she knew that Danilo had a morganatic wife, because if she didn’t know it, I thought it was my duty to tell her so.”
“Yes; and what did she say?”
“She said of course she knew it; that that was all arranged, and that she wished I would attend to my own affairs, which certainly required my attention! I said yes, I knew they did, and that if she wanted to be a real sister to me, she’d help me out—that I’d fallen in love with the sweetest girl on earth....”
“Go ahead,” Selden encouraged, as Davis paused. “What did she say to that?”
“She said ‘Piffle!’ or something like that; and then I got mad, and told her that she couldn’t fool me—that I had seen through her from the start—all that fol-de-rol about helping that little stinking country out there—when her whole object was just to get even with Jeneski because he had thrown her over....”
“Wait a minute!” Selden interrupted, sitting bolt upright. “What do you mean by that? Do you mean that Jeneski and your sister were engaged to be married?”
“Oh, no; I was just laying it on a little heavy. But Jeneski and father were always chewing the rag in the library of evenings, and sis used to hang around and pretend she understood, and all she could talk about was Jeneski and the wonderful things he was going to do. She was certainly crazy about him. And then all at once she shut up, and after a while I learned that Jeneski had pulled out for Europe—so I just put two and two together. But I may be all wrong.”
“What did your sister say when you made this—er—accusation?”