With a look of consternation and dismay she, Hal, was across the room in a bound, kneeling beside the big chair.
“My dear old girl, what in the world is the matter?”
Lorraine contrived to smile with some appearance of reality, as she dried her eyes, and said:
“I don’t quite know. It’s idiotic of me, isn’t it? If you hadn’t come and stopped me, I should never have been able to appear tonight for swollen eyes.” But Hal was not so easily put off. She grasped both Lorraine’s hands in hers and said resolutely:
“Why are you crying, Lorry?”
Feeling it hopeless to avoid some sort of a reason, she replied:
“I had a letter this morning that upset me rather. It is silly of me to take any notice, and I shouldn’t if I were well. I’ve been wretchedly nervy lately, and it makes me silly about things.”
“What was the letter about?”
“Oh, only some one who is jealous, I suppose; trying to get a little satisfaction out of saying a few things that may hurt me. It is so silly of me to mind.”
Hal’s mind immediately flew to Mrs. Vivian, and instead of inquiring any further she just said: