For some distance the gentleman made no response to Mary Jane’s last remark, and the silence was broken only by the roll of their own wheels, the ordinary sounds of the streets through which they passed, and the increasing rumble of the thunder. The storm was drawing nearer and he wished to escape it, if possible. He signalled the driver, after a while, and seeming to rouse himself from some deep thought, to: “Make haste!”
The cabman lashed his horses into a gallop, and remembering the accident of her one other ride, Mary Jane began to grow afraid. She was afraid now, also, of this silent gentleman beside her and longed for her journey to end. To pass the time she tried to count the lamps on the street corners as they flew past her in the gloom, and to watch for the illuminating flashes of lightning, which came faster and faster.
Suddenly, into this silence, Mr. McClure hurled a stern question, that compelled a truthful reply, whether she liked to give it or no.
“Mary Jane, of what was your father glad when that accident occurred?”
She caught her breath in alarm; then answered, frankly:
“He was glad because—because Bonny-Gay was hurt.”
“Why?”
“Oh! I don’t know. I mean—I guess he was so sorry about me—being like I am—and he thought it wasn’t fair. She was as beautiful and perfect as I was—was ugly; and her father had all the money and he had none. But it wasn’t right and it wasn’t him. Indeed, indeed, it wasn’t. He didn’t know you, of course, and he didn’t dream that you could love her same as he loves me. But he’d be the first—the very first—to be sorry, after he came to himself.”
“Hmm. No man, rich or poor, has a right ever to be other than himself.”
“I suppose not. But things haven’t gone right with father since we came from the country.”