"And to offer to help him!" said Kate.
"Perhaps. But your woman's quickness leaped ahead of my blundering intentions with the instinctive knowledge that any cognizance of his manner, no matter how friendly, would be unwelcome. Therefore you sent him away with the comforting assurance in his mind that we had noticed nothing amiss. Thus, in an instant, you saved the feelings and kept intact the amour propre of two men."
"That's what women are for!" said Kate, bluntly.
CHAPTER V.
BROTHER AND SISTER
Carolina had left the drawing-room before Sherman sought her there, but on receipt of a message from him that he wished to see her immediately in the library, she once more descended the stairs to wait for him.
An anxious look swept over her face as she passed the door of his room, for she heard Addie's voice raised in shrill accents, and to hear it thus was growing to be an every-day affair. She knew her brother's sensitive, yet proud and gentle nature, and she knew how difficult his wife's loud reproaches were to endure.
Suddenly the door opened and his rapid footsteps were heard running down the stairs and hurrying to the library. She rose to meet him with her anxiety to make up to him for his wife's conduct written in her face. He saw the look and misunderstood it.
"Don't look at me like that, Carol!" he cried, raising his hands as if to ward off a blow. "If you, too, feel the loss of the money as Addie does and you reproach me, I shall go mad."
"Sherman!" cried his sister. "Don't insult me by the suggestion of my reproaching you! Haven't you lost all your money as well as mine? And would you have done either if you could have helped it?"