"Well, I should have spoken of it to Kate, naturally, but for your feeling; and she would have been very nice about it, just as indignant and disgusted with him as I am."
"Perhaps so; but she's tried to do me good and failed too much to be very sorry for anything that would mortify me; and I know if she heard of this rudeness to me, she'd think it served me right,—would teach me a lesson."
Hope couldn't help laughing a little at this. Then she said suddenly, "How do you know that I don't feel just the same?"
"Oh, I know you don't exactly approve of me; but you haven't cut me up as she has, and then tried to set me right in that superior way; and you haven't meddled with me or my affairs."
"You don't know what I have done. You took it for granted that I happened to go to the theatre with Mrs. Sibley to please myself, that I happened to be behind you, and so happened to hear your talk with Raymond Armitage. But I didn't go there to please myself. I went there on purpose to—to meddle with you and your affairs!"
"What in the world do you mean?"
"I'll tell you." And then and there Hope told the whole story of her meddling, and why she did it,—the whole story, from the moment she had observed Dorothea leaving the Park with Raymond Armitage to her own departure with Mrs. Sibley; and this, of course, included the consultation with Kate, and the information regarding Raymond Armitage's movements that was wrung from Schuyler Van der Berg. As she neared the end of this story, Hope rose from her chair. Dorothea would not now desire her presence, as she had desired it a few minutes ago when they entered the house together after Mrs. Sibley had left them, and when, full of relief and gratitude, she had said: "Oh, do come up to my room for a few minutes! I want to ask you something." No, she would no longer desire her presence, even with the added relief,—the added debt of gratitude for Hope's voluntary offer to say nothing of Raymond Armitage's rudeness. She would not only no longer desire her presence, but she would doubtless turn upon her with hot resentment, as she had turned upon Kate on a previous occasion; and it was to avoid the outburst of this resentment that Hope rose to make herself ready to leave the room when she had come to the end of her story. But as she said her last word, as she turned to go,—
"Don't, don't go!" was called after her, in a queer stifled voice, not at all like Dorothea's usual high loud tones when she was protesting against anything,—a queer stifled voice that had—could it be possible?—a sound of tears in it? and—and there was a look in Dorothea's eyes,—yes, a look, as if the tears were there too, were almost ready to fall.