“Oh, nonsense, Jessie, we were talking of your lover!” cried Leola. “Go on, please, tell me more of him, and of your love for each other.”
“We are perfectly devoted to each other,” declared Jessie, unblushingly. “How could I help loving him—with all that money!”
“But, Jessie, if Mr. Olyphant were poor, would you not love him just the same?”
Jessie had a red rose in her hand, and she tore it to pieces with absent-minded fingers as she replied, bluntly:
“Bah. I wouldn’t permit myself to love a poor man if he were a perfect Adonis!”
But artless Leola, with rosy cheeks and glowing eyes, retorted:
“Then you do not know how to love, Jessie—not even the meaning of that sacred word, for I would adore Ray Chester if he had not a second coat to his back!”
“Ray Chester! There you go again!” cried Miss Stirling, with a violent start. “Oh, come now, you are madly in love with some man, Leola, and you have got to tell me all about it this minute!”
“Oh, you are mistaken!” cried poor Leola, trying to flounder out of her difficulty.
“I am not mistaken! Oh, no! I know all the signs of love, and you cannot even keep his name off your lips!” cried Miss Stirling, triumphantly: