“You needn’t suspect that, Miss. But you quiet her best, and I thought I’d come to you. But, gracious!”
Rose pushed past her without vouchsafing any answer to the look in her face, and turned off to Juliana’s chamber, where she was neither welcomed nor repelled. Juliana said she was perfectly well, and that Polly was foolishly officious: whereupon Rose ordered Polly out of the room, and said to Juliana, kindly: “You have not slept, dear, and I have not either. I am so unhappy.”
Whether Rose intended by this communication to make Juliana eagerly attentive, and to distract her from her own affair, cannot be said, but something of the effect was produced.
“You care for him, too,” cried Rose, impetuously. “Tell me, Juley: do you think him capable of any base action? Do you think he would do what any gentleman would be ashamed to own? Tell me.”
Juliana looked at Rose intently, but did not reply.
Rose jumped up from the bed. “You hesitate, Juley? What? Could you think so?”
Young women after a common game are shrewd. Juliana may have seen that Rose was not steady on the plank she walked, and required support.
“I don’t know,” she said, turning her cheek to her pillow.
“What an answer!” Rose exclaimed. “Have you no opinion? What did you say yesterday? It’s silent as the grave with me: but if you do care for him, you must think one thing or the other.”
“I suppose not, then—no,” said Juliana.