I said I felt sure that it did.
“How?” she asked.
“By the loss of faith in those to whom you have lied,” I answered. I hated to hurt her, but I thought she deserved it, and it was the truth. I had lost faith in her, and after that occurrence about the violets I could not trust her.
“It isn’t the first little lie,” I said, “that counts so much; by that you only hurt yourself. But it’s the ripples from it that make the cruelness. You see, you take the trust out of the hearts of your friends, and for a substitute you give four words.”
“What are those?” asked Amy, fingering the fringe that hung from her overskirt.
“You Can’t Trust Her,” I said. Then Amy picked up a copy of Vogue and pretended to look at it, and I turned the pages of the London Sporting and Dramatic News, which is not so entirely given to lingerie and portraits of Lady Something. I like pictures of dogs because I know their points, and I found a double page of setters, which I studied with interest.
I think Amy tried to say that she was sorry about her lies, but I think she couldn’t. And I’m glad she didn’t, for I would have had to tell her that the only way to right a wrong is to try to undo it, and she wasn’t ready to do that at that time. That took a long thinking to accomplish, and a place in the centre of the stage.
But, to go back to the afternoon of mouse-traps and General Washington study, as I said, we visited the Mansion; and “Washington’s Headquarters” it was, most truly, that day.
“Do you smell something good?” asked S. K., as we stood in the hall. I shook my head.
“Stupid-nosed girl!” he said. “A huge cut of beef is roasting before the basement fireplace. It is on a spit, and it is being turned now and again by a fat, hot cook. There’s chatter below stairs. For this night President Washington is to give a large dinner party, and the house which was once Roger Morris’, and is now but a farmhouse, is to hold American celebrities. . . . Listen to the clatter on the stairs; it is a waiter in a blue satin coat and white satin breeches. He is carrying wine-glasses, because those were the good old days before anybody thought Loganberry was good for anything but painting the barn.