“What did he tell you?” Packy countered, eyes on the road ahead.
“He told me—he told me that you told him—that I led a man-to-man existence——”
“Yes, and for once you overdid the thing,” he said smoothly. “I told you, I could wait any reasonable length of time; but I wasn’t corked up to the extent of standing by and smirking while you paraded Old Maid Grant around under my nose. You ought to have had more sense of proportion, Joy, than to go outside your line like that. And jealousy, my dear girl, is a little item you absolutely glanced over.”
“What do you mean?” cried Joy, the wind tearing the words out of her mouth almost before they came. “What right have I given you to be jealous?”
“That’s absolutely ruled out as beside the point.” Still that level voice, although the speed of the car had increased to a breathless, horrible race that left no room for analysis. “You’ve got me so I don’t know whether I’m drinking booze or water—and I don’t propose to have you meanwhile carrying on a nice, pink-and-white little time with our mutual friend Grant. It gets me—see?”
“But—I don’t see yet why you were cad enough to go and tell him such lies about me——”
“Lies!” His lips twisted back from his teeth in silent mirth. “That’s what he said. The funny part of the whole thing is that I told the truth.”
“You can’t mean what you’re saying. You must have been drinking before you came to-day——”
“Now listen, Joy—you had me buzzing for awhile there—I didn’t know exactly where to place you. Of course, living with Jerry and Sal gave me a fairly good idea——”
“Idea of what?” she screamed. “That’s what I want to know—that’s what I’ve been asking you. What did you say, when you told Grant what kind of girls I was living with?”