"Can't you give a plain answer to a plain question? Is young Forcus, who is always hanging about the place, making love to my girl or is he not?"
"He has certainly paid her attention."
"Is he engaged to her?"
"Bessie considers herself engaged. But as I tell Bessie—"
"I don't want that. What you think, or what you tell Bessie. I want facts to go upon. Without facts you can't expect me to act."
"I really do not wish you to act, William."
"Leave that to me. I am not asking what you wish," William snapped at her; and then turning on his side he seemed to go to sleep.
CHAPTER II
Something Wrong At The Office
Mrs. Day had decided to spend the first morning of the New Year in superintending the relaying of the drawing-room carpet and the reducing her house to its habitual order after the dance. Bessie had decided otherwise. She had decided that she should be driven in the carriage, her mother beside her, to some flooded and frozen meadows, three miles out of the town, where many of the young people who had danced last night had arranged to go to skate. Deleah and the boys had started to walk there immediately after breakfast. Bessie, who could not skate, wished to be there also, but did not choose to walk, and could not be allowed to be in the carriage alone.