Again he laughed. “Oh, Esther,” he said, impatiently, “don’t let’s pretend. You know what this means as well as I do. It is as plain as print. Captain Townsend—”
“It isn’t his fault. It is Mrs. Carter who can’t go. That is the reason.”
“Esther! Can’t you see? Oh, but of course you do! This Mrs. Carter is doing what your uncle has told her to do. She has called it off, trumped up the excuse, because he ordered her to do it.”
“Bob!” sharply. “Stop! You mustn’t say such things. You know they aren’t true. Why, it was Uncle Foster who persuaded Mrs. Carter to go, in the first place.”
“Yes, and now he has ordered her not to. Bah!” with an angry wave of the hand, “it is as plain as if it was painted on the wall. He doesn’t want me coming here to see you; he never did.”
“Then why did he let you come at all?”
“I don’t know—unless it was because he thought we might be seeing each other somewhere else anyhow, and he could keep an eye on us as long as we were in his house.”
“Bob! If you say another word like that I shall go away and leave you. Uncle Foster knows that he doesn’t need to keep an eye on me. He trusts me absolutely.”
She was indignant, but he was angry and sure of the correctness of his suspicions.
“He doesn’t trust me, then,” he declared, stubbornly. “He hates me, because I am a Cook. He was sending you to Europe to get you where I couldn’t see you. Well, I guessed that little trick right away and played a better one on him. I decided to go to Paris myself. He had not thought of that, I guess. It must have jolted him when you told him.”