Her visitor walked to the hearth, her face wrinkling portentously, and kissed her with an air of affectionate severity.
“I don't know,” she began, comprehending matters at a glance, “I am sure I don't know what I am to do with you all. You are in trouble now.”
“Take off your things,” said Dolly, with a helpless little sob, “and—and then I will tell you all about it. You must stay and have tea with me. Miss MacDowlas is away, and I—am all alone, and—and, O Aimée!”
The hat and jacket were laid aside in two minutes, and Aimée came back to her and knelt down.
“Is there anything in your letter you do not want me to see?” she asked.
“No,” answered Dolly, in despair, and tossed it into her lap.
It was no new story, but this time the Fates seemed to have conspired against her more maliciously than usual. A few days before Grif had found himself terribly dashed in spirit, and under the influence of impulse had written to her. Two or three times in one day he had heard accidental comments upon Gowan's attentions to her, and on his return to his lodgings at night he had appealed to her in a passionate epistle.
He was not going to doubt her again, he said, and he was struggling to face the matter coolly, but he wanted to see her. It would be worse than useless to call upon her at the Lodge, and have an interview under the disapproving eyes of Miss MacDowlas, and so he had thought they might meet again by appointment, as they had done before by chance. And Dolly had acquiesced at once. But Fortune was against her. Just as she had been ready to leave the house, Ralph Gowan had made his appearance, and Miss MacDowlas had called her down-stairs to entertain him.
“I would not have cared about telling,” cried Dolly, in tears, “but I could not tell her, and so I had to stay, and—actually—sing—Aimée. Yes, sing detestable love-sick songs, while my own darling, whom I was dying to go to, was waiting outside in the cold. And that was not the worst, either. He was just outside in the road, and when the servants lighted the gas he saw me through the window. And I was at the piano"—in a burst—"and Ralph Gowan was standing by me. And so he went home and wrote that,” signifying with a gesture the letter Aimée held. “And everything is wrong again.”
It was very plain that everything was wrong again. The epistle in question was an impetuous, impassioned effusion enough. He was furious against Gowan, and bitter against everybody else. She had cheated and slighted and trifled with him when he most needed her love and pity; but he would not blame her, he could only blame himself for being such an insane, presumptuous fool as to fancy that anything he had to offer could be worthy of any woman.