"The more I think of it, the more remarkable the resemblance gets," he persisted, ignoring her confessions.
"That doesn't make it any easier, Amzi; please don't speak of that again."
She tossed the book on the table, as though dismissing a disagreeable subject.
"Well," she said, "about going?"
"You're not going," he replied with decision. "I won't let you go. I don't know how we're going to work it all out, but it won't be so bad. The girls have got to take it."
She caught a gleam of humor in his eye. The displeasure of his other sisters at her return clearly had no terrors for him. It may have been that she herself shared his pleasure in the thought of their discomfiture. She crossed the hall, wandering aimlessly about, while he waited and wondered. When she returned she said with the brisk manner of one given to quick decisions:—
"I'm going to stay, Amzi. But let us understand now that if I'm a trouble to you, or the rest of them make you uncomfortable, I'll clear out and go to the hotel, or set up a house of my own. So don't be silly about it. I'm a practical person and can take care of myself. I'm not on your hands, you know, financially speaking or any other way."
"Thunder! No!"
This was the first time she had touched upon money matters. While she turned the leaves of the album, the clumsy baggage-men had pounded laboriously up the back stairs with her trunks, emphasizing the prosperity of which her visible apparel spoke. He was not without an acute curiosity as to the state of her fortunes. Lois had always been a luxurious person, but she was, unaccountably, the only one of his sisters who had never asked him for money. He had made what they called "advances" to all of them and these had increased as their fortunes dwindled. There was something bafflingly mysterious here. It was a fair assumption that Jack Holton had spent Lois's money long ago, and the fact that she had floated home with her flags flying and had just announced her ability to set up an establishment for herself was disquieting rather than reassuring. He was ashamed of his fears, but it was against reason that she should have escaped the clutches of a worthless blackguard like Jack Holton with any of her patrimony.
Now that she had announced her determination to remain her spirits rose buoyantly. The thought of meeting Phil had shaken her; and yet that had been but a moment's fleeting shadow, as from a stray cloud wandering across a summer sky. When she referred to Phil again, it was with a detachment at which he marveled. If he had not loved her so deeply and if his happiness at her return had been less complete, he should have thought her heartless. She had called herself "different"; and she was, indeed, different in ways that defied his poor powers of analysis. She was a mystifying creature. Her assurance, her indifference toward the world in general, the cool fashion in which she had touched off on her pretty fingers the chief incidents of her life did not stagger him so much as they fascinated him. She was of his own blood, and yet it was almost another language that she spoke.