t she, Marcia, was the
first, the only woman that Jerry had ever really known. And here was
her forgotten and lightly esteemed predecessor sporting with Jerry in
the shade!

In the cabin we made a gay party. Una, I am sure, in spite of her
cheerful pretense with Phil Laidlaw, had a woman's intuition of
Marcia's antagonism. Jerry joined and chatted in Una's group for a
moment, but I could see that he had lost something of his buoyancy. I
watched Marcia keenly. Though absorbed apparently in the pouring of
the tea, a self-appointed prerogative which she had assumed with
something of an air--(meant, I am sure, for Una)--her narrowly veiled
eyes lost no detail of any happening in Una's group, and her ears, I
am sure, no detail of its conversation. Subtle glances, stolen or
portentous, shot between them, and Jerry, poor lad, wandered from one
to the other like some great ship becalmed in a tropic sea aware of an
impending tempest, yet powerless to prevent its approach.

Una Habberton, I would like to say, had recovered her composure
amazingly. Phil Laidlaw was an old acquaintance whom she very much
liked and in a while they were chatting gayly, exchanging
reminiscences with such a rare degree of concord and amusement that it
seemed to matter little to either of them who else was in the room.
But Una, I think, in spite of this abstraction, missed nothing of
Marcia's slightest glances. She said nothing more of going. It seemed
almost as though, war having tacitly been declared, she was on her
mettle for the test whatever it was to be. I had not misjudged her.
She knew Marcia Van Wyck, and what she did not know she suspected, and
by the light of that knowledge (and that suspicion) had a little of
contempt for her.

CHAPTER XX

REVOLT

I sat in my corner sipping tea. Being merely a man, middle-aged and
something of a misogynist into the bargain, I was aware that as an
active, useful force in this situation, I was a negligible quality.
But it is interesting to record my impressions of the engagement. It
began actively, I believe, when Marcia called Jerry from Una's group
and appeared to appropriate him. Jerry looked ill at ease and from the
glances he cast in the direction of Channing Lloyd, and the sullen way
in which he spoke to Marcia, I think that all was not well with this
ill-sorted pair.

I think that Channing Lloyd had for some time been a bone of
contention between them and it required little imagination