What could be the trouble? More than ever Gloria felt painfully out of place and longed for the things she had sacrificed.
While she adjusted a curtain at the side window, her uncle’s words floated in:
“I asked you not to do it. I told you it could not come out right and I shall never stay in Sandford until the matter is cleared.”
Gloria drew back instinctively. What was the disgraceful thing he was fleeing from?
Was that what her aunt had called his “high-mindedness”? Then she heard her aunt insist:
“But Lottie agreed—”
“When you pestered her into it.”
Gloria was not listening. The words came to her as if they were meant for her ears. She stole back into the other room and sat there in the early darkness. More miserable than ever, she felt crushed, stifled, and yet she could not even ask a question.
Is there anything more unhappy than to be in a house where a quarrel is seething in the background?
She was going to cry. It was one of her rare occasions but she could choke it down no longer. Here was Uncle Charley and he had brought with him only more gloom. The big cat brushed up to be noticed and Gloria’s hand smoothed the gray fur. A grateful purr made her more lonely. Only a cat to be friends with!