It seemed that their financial affairs were not definitely settled, as they had believed. Mr. Doyle, the lawyer, kept writing to her letters she could not quite understand, anxious, almost desperate letters, accusing himself of “criminal folly”; begging her forgiveness, and making all sorts of promises. He wrote always to her, never to Rose, and she was glad of that, for she did not want Rose to know.
But she was so tired. She tried valiantly to do her share, to be a good comrade to her beloved sister; but she was not strong, either in body or in spirit; she was a gentle soul; she could endure, but she could not fight. She wanted only to live in peace and good will, harmless and lovely as a flower.
It was a Saturday afternoon; Gilbert had come home early in his little car, and he and Margie had at once begun to quarrel fiercely.
“Bill told you to take me to the village in the car, if I wanted!” she declared.
“Do you good to walk!” said her brother.
“I won’t walk!”
“All right! Then stay home!”
Presently the back door slammed, in the Morgan fashion, and Nina hoped he was going away. It hurt her to hear these two[Pg 391] young creatures quarrel so; she always wished that she had some magic word to stop them, to bring quiet to their stormy spirits. She was waiting for the sound of his engine starting up, when, to her surprise, she saw him standing on the path before her.
“Mrs. De Haaven,” he said, “can you spare me a few minutes?”
“With pleasure!” she answered, as if this amazing request were quite a matter of course. “Come up on the veranda, won’t you?”