"Just a little taste of buffalo berry jelly for Essie," said Miss Starr, with her most radiant smile. "Her uncle might enjoy it."
"I ain't forgot," said Mrs. Tutts, "how fond Ess is of brown bread, so I says to myself I'll just take some of my baked beans along, too. Tutts says I beat the world on baked beans. Where's Ess? I'd like to see her."
"Yes; tell her we're here," chorused the others.
Mrs. Terriberry's moment had come. She drew herself up in a pose of hauteur which a stout person can only achieve with practice.
"Miss Tisdale," she replied with glib gusto, "is engaged at present and begs to be excused. But," she added in words which were obviously her own, "you can put your junk in the closet over there with the rest that's come."
Dr. Harpe understood perfectly now the meaning of the Dago Duke's confident smile and the stranger's cold, searching look of enmity. He was no weakling, this new-found relative of Essie Tisdale's, and the Dago Duke's threats were no longer empty boastings.
If only she could sleep! Sleep? Was it days or weeks since she had slept? Forebodings, suspicions of those whom she had been forced to trust, Nell Beecroft, Lamb, and others, were spectres that frightened sleep from her strained eyes. A tight band seemed stretched across her forehead. She rubbed it hard, as though to lessen the tension. There was a dull ache at the base of her brain and she shook her head to free herself from it, but the jar hurt her.
Some one whistled in the corridor. She listened.
"Farewell, my own dear Napoli, Farewell to Thee, Farewell to Thee——" How she hated that song! The Dago Duke was coming for his answer.