"Where are you going?" he inquired, inquisitively.
"I'm going to see Mrs. Andrews," she replied.
"No, you're not!" he declared, quickly, with a flash.
Columbine felt a queer sensation deep within her, a hot little gathering that seemed foreign to her physical being, and ready to burst out. Of late it had stirred in her at words or acts of Jack Belllounds. She gazed steadily at him, and he returned her look with interest. What he was thinking she had no idea of, but for herself it was a recurrence and an emphasis of the fact that she seemed growing farther away from this young man she had to marry. The weeks since his arrival had been the most worrisome she could remember.
"I am going," she replied, slowly.
"No!" he replied, violently. "I won't have you running off down there to--to gossip with that Andrews woman."
"Oh, you won't?" inquired Columbine, very quietly. How little he understood her!
"That's what I said."
"You're not my boss yet, Mister Jack Belllounds," she flashed, her spirit rising. He could irritate her as no one else.
"I soon will be. And what's a matter of a week or a month?" he went on, calming down a little.