“I hate him!” said Jessica, between her teeth.
She looked hard at the ocean. Under its grey sky to-day it was the colour of her eyes, as cold and as unfathomable. The glittering Medusa-like ends of her hair seemed to leap upward and writhe at each other.
“I should think you would hate him,” said Miss Decker; “he is the only living man who ever got the best of you. But listen to what your devoted infant has to say. Nice little boy, Teddy:—
“‘Dearest! Sweetest! Do you know that I am almost dancing for joy at this moment? Indeed, my feet are going faster than my pen. To think! To think!—you really do love me after all. But I always said you were not a flirt. I knocked a man down once and challenged him to a duel because he said you were. He wouldn’t fight, but I had the satisfaction of letting him know what I thought of him. And now I can prove it to all the world! But I can’t write any more. There are three blots on this now—the pen is jumping and you know I never was much at writing letters. But I can talk, and to-morrow I will tell you all.
“‘Your own Teddy.
“‘P.S.—Is it not queer—quite a coincidence—Severance, Trent, and Boswell are going to Newport to-morrow, too. How proud I shall be! But no, I take that back; I only pity them, poor devils, from the bottom of my heart; or I would if it wasn’t filled up with you.
“‘T.’”
“Well, madam, you’re in a scrape, and I don’t envy you. What will you do?”
Mrs. Pendleton pressed her head against the back of the chair, straining her head upward as if she wanted the salt breeze to rasp her throat.
“I have been so bored for six months,” she said slowly. “Let them come. I will see each of them alone, and keep the farce going for a week or so. It will be amusing—to be engaged to four men at once. You will command the forces and see that they do not meet. Of course, it cannot be kept up very long, and when all resources are failing I will let them meet and make them madly jealous. It will do one of them good, at least.”