"Well, Ik," replied Van Berg with a shrug, "I imagine there is a pair of us. My reason—all that's decent in me—refuses to regard Sibley as the cause of your cousin's most evident distress. For heaven's sake don't confirm your words of this afternoon, or I shall feel like taking the first train, in order to escape from the most exasperating paradox that ever contradicted a man's senses."
"Van, you are right. I am mortified with myself beyond measure, and I am bitterly ashamed that my aunt, her own mother, should have so grossly misjudged her. Sibley, no doubt, IS the occasion of her trouble in part, for she seems fairly to writhe under the false position in which he has placed her by leading every one to associate her name with his; but I now believe that she loathes and detests him more than you or I can. Certainly no woman could speak of a man in harsher or more scathing terms than she spoke of him to-night. Well, to sum up the whole miserable trough, by taking her mother's view for granted, I made such a mess of it that I doubt if she ever speaks civilly to either of us again."
"Why! was my name mentioned?" asked Van Berg, quickly.
"Yes, confound it all! When things are going wrong there is a miserable fatality about them, and the worst always happens. She asked me point-blank if you shared my estimate of her, and I suppose got the impression you did."
"Well really, Stanton," said Van Berg, with some irritation, "I think you must have been unfortunate in your language."
"Worse than unfortunate. The whole blunder is unpardonable. Still, do me justice. I could not answer her question with a bold lie. And what would have been its use? How could you explain your bearing towards her at the supper table? Your manner would have frozen Jezebel herself."
"I was an infernal fool," groaned Van Berg.
"It is due to us both that I should say I told her you had tried to form a good opinion of her, and very reluctantly received the view her mother suggested. I said, in effect, you wished to think well of her, although she had treated you so badly."
"Treated me badly! I have treated her a thousandfold worse. She, at least, has never insulted me, and I can never forgive myself for the insult I have offered her.
"Well, I hope to find her in the mood to accept an apology in the morning," said Stanton.