"Better 'tend to this thing; better write again to—your father," he said and walked off, leaving me cold and tremulous with rage.
I must have imagined the pause, the inflection; but he has me under surveillance. Like a thief!
I flew to the dining-room and swallowed a glass of sherry, for I was faint and quivering; but before I had turned from the sideboard Cadge bounced into the room, tearing through the flat to find me, and stopped to stare, open-eyed.
"Drop that!" she cried.
"Oh, don't preach! I've just been having such a time!"
"Everybody has 'em; I've had fifty a year for fifty years. And I don't mind your drowning sorrow in the flowing bowl, either. But do it like a man, in company. Honest now, Helen."
She changed the subject abruptly to the errand that had brought her; but, before she went away, she looked curiously at the sideboard and said:——
"Helen, you really don't——"
"Mercy, no! Scarcely at table, even. Why I used to be shocked to see how things to drink are thrust upon women, even in department stores. But they're not all deadly; there's 'creme de menthe' now—the pep'mint extract Ma used to give me for stomach-ache."
Cadge laughed with me, but she turned quickly grave again.