That was the beginning of the friendship which was to end so disastrously for poor Jess.
Queenie was a thorough woman of the world, versed in its arts, its deceits, while Jess was but a child of nature, with a heart as open as the day, and free from guile or knowledge of falsity; therefore it was little wonder that she quite believed her welcome genuine.
In a week’s time, “the two girls,” as Queenie’s mother persisted in calling them, were as inseparable as though they had known each other from childhood up.
“I am so glad that you came to me just when you did, dear Jess,” murmured Queenie, “for I was feeling my grief so keenly that I thought my poor heart would surely break.”
Jess crossed the room and stood in front of the picture of the late departed Mr. Brown, studying the wrinkled face it represented; the bald head, smooth as a billiard ball; the shrunken mouth and chin, and almost sightless eyes, and her thoughts broke into words, and quite before she considered what she was about to utter, she said, impulsively:
“How could you ever have loved so old and withered a human being, Queenie, let alone marrying him; and you so young and fair? I thought when I first saw the picture hanging here that he was your great-grandfather.”
A flush stained Queenie’s face from neck to brow for a moment, and her heart gave a great strangling throb. It was fully a moment ere she replied, then she said slowly:
“I will not tell you an untruth, Jess; it was not because I loved my husband that I married him. He saved my father from financial ruin, and I married him because he demanded my hand as the price of it. There was no question of love between us.”
“I should never marry a man I could not love, no matter what the consequences of my refusing were,” declared Jess.
“You have never been placed in such a position; you can hardly tell what you would do or would not do, dear,” murmured Queenie, thinking that that remark was a fine opening for Jess to make a confidant of her in regard to the lover who was to have been forced upon her by the Dinsmore will.