“Everyone knew they had a terrible case on each other,” said Miss Biggs simply.
“Were they supposed to be engaged?”
“No, sir, I don’t know as they were; but everyone sort of thought they would be.”
“Their relations were freely discussed amongst their friends?”
“They surely were.”
“Did you ever discuss the affair with either Mr. Ives or Mrs. Bellamy?”
“Not ever with Pat, I didn’t, but Mimi used to talk about it quite a lot.”
“Do you remember what she said during the first conversation?”
“Well, I think that the first time was when we had a terrible fight about it.” At memory of that far-off quarrel Florrie’s blue eyes flooded and brimmed over again. “We’d been on a picnic and Pat and Mimi got separated from the rest of us, and by and by we went home without them; and it was awfully late that night when they got back, and I told Mimi that she ought to be carefuller how she went around with a fellow like Pat Ives, and she got terrible mad and told me that she knew what she was doing and she could look after herself, and that I was just jealous and to mind my own business. Oh, she talked to me something fierce.”
Miss Biggs’s voice broke on a great sob, and suddenly the crowded courtroom faded. . . . It was a hot July night in a village street and the shrill, angry voices of the two girls filled the air. Once more Mimi Dawson, insolent in her young beauty, was telling little Florrie Biggs to keep her small snub nose out of other people’s affairs. All the injured woe of that far-off night was in her sob.