“Oh, Josie,” said I, seeking cover. “You are too sensitive. There isn’t anything, is there, Alice?”
Here I scowled violently, and shook my head at my wife; but all to no effect.
“Yes, there is,” said Alice. “We have a dear friend, the best in the world, and he has an enemy. The whole town is divided in allegiance between them, about nine on one side to one on the other—”
“Which proves nothing,” said Josie.
“And now,” Alice went on, “you, who have had every opportunity of seeing, and ought to know, that one of them is, in every look, and thought, and act, a man, while the other is—”
“A friend of mine and of my mother’s,” said Josie; “please omit the character-sketch. And remember that I refuse even to consider these business differences. Each claims to be right; and I shall judge them by other things.”
“Business differences, indeed!” scoffed Alice, albeit a little impressed by the girl’s dignity. “As if you did not know what these differences came from! But it isn’t because you remain neutral that we com—”
“You complain, Alice,” said I; “I am distinctly out of this.”
“That I complain, then,” amended Alice reproachfully. “It is because you dismiss the man and keep the—other! You may say I have no right to be heard in this, but I’m going to complain Josie Trescott, just the same!”
This seemed to approach actual conflict, and I was frightened. Had it been two men, I should have thought nothing of it, but with women such differences cut deeper than with us. Josie stepped to her writing-desk and took from it a letter.