Then they both rose, as it might be said, to the surface of their overwhelming emotions, and stood facing each other breathless and disordered.
Josephine went off in a peal of laughter, Amber, ever sympathetic though burning with curiosity, followed her, and then they flung themselves on the sofa—one at each end, and laughed again.
“I am saved—saved—and I come to you to tell you so,” cried Josephine, catching one of Amber’s hands and swinging her arm over the cushions that billowed between them.
“Saved—saved—is he dead—or—or—has he been found out?” whispered Amber. “Clever men invaribly are found out.”
“Found out?—oh, I found him out long ago—the day he tricked me into believing that I was still bound to him, though he had just pretended to set me free. But to-day—before lunch time—by the way, I have had no lunch yet!”
Both girls laughed as aimlessly as negresses at this point, it seemed so ridiculous not to have had lunch.
“Before lunch—he came to you?” suggested Amber.
“Not he—not Launcelot but another—the other was a young woman—oh, quite good-looking, and wearing a very pretty Parma-violet velvet hat with ospreys, and a cashmere dress, with an Eton jacket trimmed with diagonal stripes of velvet to match the hat—oh, quite a nice girl. I had never seen her before—she had sent in her name—Miss Barbara Burden—such a sweet name, isn’t it?”
“Quite charming! Who was she? I never heard the name.”
“I had never heard the name. I fancied that she had come about a bazaar for the widows and orphans, so many strangers come about that, you know—but she hadn’t. I saw her. It was most amusing; but she was quite nice. She had the newspaper in her hand with that announcement—that horrid announcement——-”