CHAPTER XV.
LILIAS.
rmengarde had just finished her morning toilet when the bedroom door was banged violently open. It shut with a loud report and Marjorie, breathless and triumphant, appeared before her.
"What will you give for some good news?" she said, dancing excitedly up and down. "There, you shall give three guesses. Something so good, so jolly. You will be delighted. Now guess! What's going to happen?"
Ermengarde was in one of her worst humors. Everything had gone wrong with her. There was a load of oppression and care on her heart, and now she was seriously uneasy about Basil. She was not brave enough to exonerate him by confessing her own sins, but it was torture to her to think that he should be unjustly suspected of anything mean and dishonorable.
"Do guess! It's something so delightful. You will be pleased," repeated Marjorie, continuing to dance wildly up and down.
"I do wish, Maggie, you'd understand that other people are not in the frantic state of bliss you are in. Your manners lately are too intolerable. I shall ask father if I cannot have a separate bedroom, for I will not have you banging in and out of the room in the horrid tomboy way you have. I don't want to hear your good news. It's nothing that can concern me, that I am sure."
"Oh, indeed, truly it concerns you."