“I don’t believe it. It’s not true.”
Berny laughed again.
“Well, that’s only fair,” she said with an air of debonair large-mindedness. “I’ve been telling you what you say is lies and now you tell me what I say is lies. It’s not, and you know it’s not. How would I have found out about all this? Do you think Dominick told me? Men don’t tell their wives when they want to get rid of them. They’re stupid, but they’re not that stupid.”
Rose gave a low exclamation and turned her head away. Berny was waiting for a second denial of her statements, when the young girl rose to her feet, saying in a horrified murmur,
“How awful! How perfectly awful!”
“Of course,” Berny continued, addressing her back, “I was to understand you didn’t know anything about it. I had my own opinions on that. Fathers don’t go round buying husbands for their daughters unless they know their daughters are dead set on having the husbands. Bill Cannon was not trying to get Dominick away from me just because he wanted to be philanthropic. Neither was Mrs. Ryan. You’re the kind of wife she wanted for her boy, just as Dominick’s the husband your father’d like for you. So you stood back and let the old people do the dirty work. You——”
Rose turned quickly, sat down on the edge of the bench, and leaned toward the speaker. Her face was full of a quivering intensity of concern.
“You poor, unfortunate woman!” she said in a shaken voice, and laid her hand on Berny’s knee.
Berny was so astonished that for the moment she had no words, but stared uncomprehending, still alertly suspicious.
“You poor soul!” Rose went on. “If I’d known or guessed for a moment I’d have spoken differently. I can’t say anything. I didn’t know. I couldn’t have guessed. It’s the most horrible thing I ever heard of. It’s—too—too——”