“You know quite well you have been angling to get an introduction to Miss Angela St. Just. Well, I happen to know that you’ve got it, and now you want to drop the girls.”
“Not Marcia,” said Clay; “we are quite willing to be friends with her. She must come and stay with us—it is her turn. It will be delightful to have her here with Angela St. Just.”
“I call it beastly free of you to call her by her Christian name.”
“Jim, I wish you’d mind your manners. I’m sure I’m not half so rude in my speech as you are, and of course I wouldn’t call her that to her face.”
“I should hope not indeed,” said Jim. “I don’t understand girls, and that’s the truth.”
He marched away. The night was a dark one, but warm. He went down through the shrubbery; he passed a little arbour where Clara and Penelope had had their interrupted conference a little earlier in the evening. He thought he heard some one sobbing. The sound smote on his ear.
“Hullo,” he said, “who’s there?”
The sobs ceased; there was dead silence. He went in, struck a match, and saw Penelope crouched in a corner.
“Why you poor little wretch,” he said, “what in the world is wrong with you? Why are you out here by yourself, and crying as though your heart would break? Why, a poacher might come across you, and then what a fright you’d get!”
“A poacher? You don’t really think so, Jim?”