"Well, it's a case of misplaced affection," I growl, lounging out of the room just in time to avoid the rising storm.
I dash upstairs and smoke a cigar in my own room. Then I feel better, and stroll into Ethel's boudoir, resolved to pitch her mother's present in the fire if it doesn't suit me. She ought to be suppressed in this particular. "Wha—what! No—yes, it is!" The bureau, Bella's bureau, stands in the chaste confines of Ethel's satin-lined nest. I fling myself upon it, tear the little drawer open—hurl the bundle of letters into the grate with a cackling laugh.
Ethel enters timidly just then, and looks first at me and then at the burning papers with doubt and wonderment in her blue eyes.
"I have been paying some old debts," I say, with an uneasy laugh. "These are some of the I.O.U.'s you see burning."
She lays a soft little arm around my neck and a curly head on my immaculate shirt-front. Oh, spotless mask for such a darksome heart! I wonder she cannot catch the sound of its wicked beating.
"I have been worried about you lately, dear," she whispers, with a tender tremor in her voice. "I thought perhaps you might—you might—have become entangled with some other—other—" Then she burst into tears.
"How often must I tell you, darling," patting her cheek softly, "that you are the only woman I ever loved?"
"Oh, Jack!"
Ernest De Lancey Pierson.