“You don’t really hate me, Margie,” she said. “You couldn’t—when I like you so much.”
“Like me?”
“I liked you the very first time I saw you,” Rose explained. “You were saying good-by to Paul, on the beach.[Pg 393]”
“You saw Paul?” cried Margie. “I suppose you’ll tell Bill. Well, I don’t care! If you don’t tell Bill, Gilbert will.”
Rose found it surprisingly easy not to get angry with Margie.
“But why should your brother object to Paul?” she inquired.
“It’s not that,” said Margie. “Only what do you suppose Paul would think of Bill—and this house—and the way we live? Oh, I’m so ashamed of us! I’m so—so ashamed of us! If you knew—when mother was alive—three years ago—we had our dear home, and everything so dainty and pretty in it—and she kept us from fighting—just by being there. Oh, mother! Mother darling! You don’t know—nobody knows—what it’s like—without her.”
Rose knelt down beside the girl, put an arm about her, and drew the bright head down on her shoulder.
“You poor little thing!” she crooned. “Poor little Margie!”
“And now—I’m going to lose Paul,” Margie went on, in a choked voice. “He’s always asking why he can’t come to see me in my own home. He’s awfully particular and high minded. He hates to meet me on the sly that way. And—”