“It is—” she stammered, “it is that I think you are fond of that Italian girl.” She hid her face in a fold of her rich auburn hair and went on. “They do tell me you walk with her when your brother goes with Miss Gladys. Don’t be angry with me, Jim. I know I have no right to say these things. I know I have no claim, no power over you. But we did keep company once, Jim, didn’t us? And it do stab my heart,—to hear them tell of you and she!”
James Andersen looked frowningly at the window.
The curtains were not drawn; and a dark ash-branch stretched itself across the casement like an extended threatening arm. Its form was made visible by a gap in the surrounding trees, through which a little cluster of stars faintly twinkled. The cloud veil had melted.
“What a world this is!” the stone-carver thought to himself. His tone when he spoke was irritable and aggrieved.
“How silly you are, Ninsy—with your fancies! A man can’t be civil to a poor lonesome foreign wench, without your girding at him as if he had done something wrong! Of course I speak to Miss Traffio and walk with her too. What else do you expect when the poor thing is left lonesome on my hands, with Luke and Miss Gladys amusing themselves? But you needn’t worry,” he added, with a certain unrestrained bitterness. “It’s only when Luke and his young lady are together that she and I ever meet, and I don’t think they’ll often be together now.”
Ninsy looked at him with questioning eyes.
“He and she have quarrelled,” he said curtly.
“Over the American?” asked the girl.
“Over the American.”