CHAPTER XX
THE LITTLE SPIDER
Berny had been turning over in her mind the advantages of accepting the money—had been letting herself dwell upon the delights of possible possession—when at the Sunday dinner that afternoon Josh McCrae threw her back into the state of incensed rejection with which she had met the first offer. With his face wreathed in joyous grins, he had apprised her of the fact that only an hour earlier, while walking on Telegraph Hill, he had seen Dominick there talking with Miss Cannon.
A good deal of query followed Josh’s statement. There was quite an outburst of animated interrogations rising from the curiosity the Iversons felt concerning Bill Cannon’s daughter, and under cover of it Berny controlled her face and managed to throw in a question or two on her own account. There had been a minute—that one when Josh’s statement had struck with a shocking unexpectedness on her consciousness—when she had felt and looked her wrath and amaze. Then she had gripped her glass and drunk some water and, swallowing gulpingly, had heard her sister’s rapid fire of questions, and Josh, proud to have imparted such interesting information, answering importantly. Putting down her glass, she said quite naturally,
“Where did you say you saw them—near the quarry?”
“Just by the edge, talking together. I was going to walk along and join them, and then I thought they looked so sort of sociable, I’d better not butt in. Dominick got to know her real well up in the Sierra, didn’t he?”
“Yes, of course,” she said hurriedly. “They grew to be quite friends. They must have met by accident on the hill. Dominick’s always walking in those queer, deserted places.”
“You haven’t got acquainted with her yet, have you?” said the simple Josh, whose touch was not of the lightest. “It would be a sort of grind on the Ryans if you get really solid with her.”
“Oh, I can know her whenever I want,” Berny answered airily, above a discomfort of growing revelation that was almost as sharp as a pain. “Dominick’s several times asked me if I wanted to meet her, but it always was at times when I’d other things to do. We’re going to ask her to the flat to tea some time.”
On ordinary occasions, Berny would never have gone to this length of romantic invention, for she was a judicious liar and believed, with the sage, that a lie was too valuable a thing to waste. But just now she was too upset, too preyed upon by shock and suspicion, to exercise an artistic restraint, and she lied recklessly, unmindful of a future when her listeners would expect to see her drafts on the bank of truth cashed.
She was quiet for the rest of the afternoon, but it was not till she had reached her own home, silent in its untenanted desertion, that she had an opportunity to turn the full vigor of her mind on what she had heard.