ROPE

ROPE BY HOLWORTHY HALL Author of “The Man Nobody Knew,” etc.
NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
1922

ROPE

1

CHAPTER I

As Henry came blithely into the house with a heavy suit-case in one hand and a cumbersome kit-bag in the other, his Aunt Mirabelle marched out like a grenadier from the living-room, and posted herself in the hallway to watch him approach. There was this much to say for Aunt Mirabelle: she was at least consistent, and for twenty years she had worn the same expression whenever she looked at him. During that period the rest of the world and Henry had altered, developed, advanced––but not Aunt Mirabelle. She had changed neither the style of her clothes nor the nature of her convictions; she had disapproved of Henry when he was six, and therefore, she disapproved of him today. To let him know it, she regarded him precisely as though he 2 were still six, and had forgotten to wash his face.

“I suppose,” remarked Aunt Mirabelle, in her most abrasive voice, “I suppose you’re waiting for me to say I hope you had a good time. Well, I’m not a-going to say it, because it wouldn’t be true, and I wouldn’t want to have it sitting on my conscience. Of course, some people haven’t got much of any conscience for anything to sit on, anyway. If they did, they’d be earnest, useful citizens. If they did, then once in a while they’d think about something else besides loud ties and silk socks and golf. And they wouldn’t be gallivanting off on house-parties for a week at a time, either; they’d be tending to their business––if they had any. And if they hadn’t, they ought to.”