Rudolph was silent.
“Can you expect me to be satisfied, to be laughed at and neglected, while you and Mrs. Dale exchange confidences, and forg-g-get me?”
“Now, Mabin, you are silly, my darling, silly, childish! You have known just as well as I that there was a secret somewhere. Can’t you be content to wait till the proper time comes for you to be told, instead of behaving like an inquisitive school-girl?”
Now this was the very worst sort of speech he could have made. If Rudolph had not been himself a good deal excited that afternoon by the story which Mrs. Dale had confided to his ears, he would have exercised greater restraint, greater choice in his words, and would have given more consideration to his fiancée’s point of view.
Mabin grew white.
“I can wait, certainly,” she said with a sudden change to an extremely quiet manner and tone, “for the great secret which absorbed you so deeply. But there is another, a little mystery, which I want to know now; and that is—how a woman who is in the depths of despair at four o’clock, as Mrs. Dale appeared to be, can be in the very highest spirits at five? Or is that a secret I have to wait to know?”
“It’s all part of the same story,” replied Rudolph humbly, feeling perhaps that greater demands were being made upon her patience than was quite fair. “And I can only repeat that you will know everything presently.”
“And why not now?”
“The whole thing was confided to me, and I don’t feel at liberty to say any more even to you! Surely you can trust me, can trust us both. Why, Mabin, I thought you were so proud of your loyalty to your friends!”
The tears sprang to the girl’s eyes. She was giving way, and yet feeling all the time that she had not been well treated, when unluckily she noticed a little movement on the part of her companion, and looked up quickly enough to see that Mrs. Dale, with a mischievous smile on her face, was standing at the door of the house, and waving a strip of paper to him as a signal.