“Fan, you make me mad! Didn’t I just say I wouldn’t?”
“Well, then; he went with her in the auto; they started about five o’clock in the morning, and Jim didn’t get home till after twelve that night.”
Ellen laughed, with studied indifference.
“Pity they couldn’t have asked us to go along,” she said. “I’m sure the car’s plenty big enough.”
“I don’t think it was just for fun,” said Fanny.
“You don’t? What for, then?”
“I asked Jim, and he wouldn’t tell me.”
“When did you ask him?”
“The morning they went. I came down about half past four: mother doesn’t get up as early as that, we haven’t much milk to look after now; but I wake up awfully early sometimes, and I’d rather be doing something than lying there wide awake.”
Ellen squeezed Fanny’s arm sympathetically. She herself had lost no moments of healthy sleep over Jim Dodge’s fancied defection; but she enjoyed imagining herself to be involved in a passionate romance.