CHAPTER X
THE SPELL BREAKS
That spot in Miss Belinda's heart which had softened toward her niece in the latter's misery of bereavement bid fair to harden over again every time she thought of Linda's attitude toward Bertram King. It was bad enough to harbor the absurd theory that so young a man had been able to mould the opinions and actions of his employer; but it was unthinkable that in this time of grief and stress the girl had been able to sneer at him, and so evidently cut him to the heart with her accusation. Every time that scene rose before Miss Barry's mental vision her earrings quivered again. What did these weary days that she was undergoing amount to? Linda was civil to her, but indifferent to everything and everybody. The girl made no effort to conceal that the visits of her own sister were a weariness, and, unthinkable to Harriet, she made excuses not to see little Harry.
Day after day of the big empty house and the silent girl, the constant whirr of motors through the wide-open windows, caused Miss Barry to find that she was guilty of nerves. Again and again she hinted to Linda that the sea air was what she needed. The girl was usually deaf to the suggestion, or else returned, gently and civilly, it is true, to pleading with her aunt not to remain longer, protesting that she was entirely recovered and able to be left alone.
One day her answer became more frank.
"Mrs. Porter has written me that she is trying to get Bertram to come there to rest," she said.
Miss Barry gazed at the speaker. "Sits the wind in that quarter?" thought she. Her earrings quivered again, and she counted ten. Of what use was it to contend with a statue? At last she spoke.
"I only wish we could do something for him," she said, "but it won't be that. I met him on the street yesterday, and he said it wouldn't be possible for him to get away before autumn."
Linda making no reply to this, Miss Barry stared at her for a minute more, then sought her own pleasant, spacious room. Hers was not the pen of a ready writer, but she sat down now at her well-appointed desk, and wrote a letter.