To Miriam’s amazement Louise bit her lips and trembled,—Louise, the Spartan! Miriam kissed her cold cheek and gave her arm an affectionate pat. She felt awkward. “What’s there to be afraid of?” she scoffed. “You of all people!”
“It’s not fear,” Louise quietly contradicted. “It’s disgust.”
“How does Keble take it?”
“He is as blind as you were. And I haven’t been able to bring myself to telling him. That explains better than anything my state of mind. He will be so odiously glad.”
Miriam was shocked.
“Yes, odiously,” Louise petulantly repeated. “I know it’s abominable of me to talk like this. But he will be so suffocatingly good and kind . . . Oh Miriam!”
She burst into tears and let Miriam’s arms receive her. “I loathe hysterical women,” she sobbed, then turned to Miriam with appealing eyes. “You will stay won’t you?”
Miriam hesitated. The decision she had come to on her solitary ride broke down as other similar decisions had done.
“Why, yes, dear,—yes, of course I’ll see you through it,” she replied, and allowed Louise’s grateful caress to silence a little exulting voice within her.