“Perhaps I should not have said what I did, but Dorothy and I have grown so intimate over the problem of Kara’s strange attitude that I tell her most things. I suppose Memory is helping you because she thinks you are specially in need of her help. She has a way of passing herself from one person to the other for this reason.”
Louise hesitated.
“I am one of the most awkward persons in the world, Tory, and you are a dear not to be angry! I overheard what was not intended for me and reproached you for it.
“Yes, I do need Miss Frean’s help. I have not had a happy winter, things at home are becoming more and more difficult. It is just such things as my having made that impolite speech to you without intending or realizing how it might affect you, that makes my mother hopeless concerning me. I thought after last summer I would improve.”
“Yes, Ouida, but come to the point. What is Miss Frean to do to help reconcile you to life? Don’t you suppose I appreciate that things have been specially hard for you at home? Perhaps you have not been conscious of the fact, but I have seen less of you this winter than since we were tiny girls. Even old Don noticed the fact and asked me what was the matter,” Dorothy McClain protested.
For just a flashing moment Louise’s heavy features lightened and Tory caught the look of affectionate devotion in the large, pale-gray eyes with their queerly fringed lashes.
“No day has passed without my seeing you, Dorothy, when I have not missed you and longed for you. But I knew you had Tory and the excitement of Lance and Kara. Then mother did not wish me to see so much of you,” Louise added with her fatal tactlessness.
At this it was Dorothy whose color flushed her clear, bright skin. Her gray-blue eyes dropped.
“Sorry your mother thinks I am a bad influence! Perhaps I am! Only, Tory, I trust Miss Victoria and Mr. Fenton will not reach the same conclusion, or I should be deserted indeed.”
“Now you are hurting Ouida. Do let’s be sensible and stop arguing. Louise did not mean that her mother considered you an undesirable character, Dorothy. Perhaps she may be just a little jealous of Louise’s affection for you. We are but mortals, all of us, even mothers, I suppose, although Dorothy has no mother and I only a stepmother.” Tory made an amusing grimace. “I would like to recall the fact, Louise, that we still are in the dark with regard to you and Memory Frean. Here, I may as well confess my jealousy. I don’t like Louise being more of a favorite than I am, just as I resented Edith Linder, I suppose.”