“What do you mean by that?” Wanza demanded fiercely. She dropped the lines. “Now, what do you mean by that, I say?”
“Dear Wanza,” I said, soothingly, “I don’t mean anything—except that pink lends a pretty glow to an alabaster skin like yours.”
Her eyes gleamed at me savagely in the moonlight, and she made a strange sound in her throat that sounded like a sob.
“I don’t understand,” I continued, “why you’re so sensitive, of late. Why, it’s so hard to talk to you! You’re so difficult I feel like putting on a mental dress-suit and kid gloves when I converse with you. What’s come over you, Wanza?”
“Nothing’s come over me. It’s you,” she answered in a low tone.
“Oh, no,” I responded, “Wanza girl, I treat you just the same as I ever did, my dear!”
“But you don’t treat me the same as you do her—you don’t treat me just the same—” her voice sounded husky. She turned her head away.
What could I reply?
I ventured finally: “I don’t know exactly what you mean, child! But I hope I show by my manner to you how very much you count in my life,—how dear you are to Joey and me—how fine and staunch a friend we have ever found you—I hope I show this, Wanza. If I do not I am sorry indeed.”
There was a slight movement towards me on the girl’s part. Her hand crept out shyly and touched mine. I heard her whisper chokingly: