“What nonsense——” he began, eagerly.
“No”—her eyes were somber, smoldering—“she hates me!” Blanche emphasized the word with her whip on the mare’s flank. “She thinks I’m awful! Hasn’t she said that to you?”
“She has said nothing of the sort. She has nothing to do with it.”
“She has everything!” Blanche said, suddenly, passionately. She jerked the mare’s head fiercely.
They had turned out of the dazzling street into a softly sprinkled side way, where the pepper trees wept their tassels in the dust. Blanche kept her eyes on the bit of blue sky that seemed to close the end of the street like a jewel in a setting.
“Before she came you took me for just what I was. You believed in me, Walter. But ever since she said things, I feel—oh, I don’t know! As if you were a long way off, watching me, and wondering about everything I say and do.”
He broke in: “Because once or twice I criticised some trifle!”
“Oh,” she cried, “don’t think I wouldn’t take criticism from you! I’d take a lot. I’d even wear the sort of hats your sister does!”
“Oh, confound the sort of hats! You know that’s not it. It’s—I—love you, Blanche.”
He brought out the little isolated sentence breathlessly, with a jerk. His sallow face was flushed.