, Aunt Selina, you know she can't go out, and what's more, I--don't
want her to go."

"You--what?" Aunt Selina screeched, taking a step forward. "You have the
audacity to say such a thing to me!"

Bella leaned over and gave the fire log a punch.

"I was just saying that he shouldn't say such things to me, either,"
she remarked pleasantly. "I'm afraid you'll take cold, Miss Caruthers.
Wouldn't you like a hot sherry flip?"

Aunt Selina gasped. Then she sat down heavily on one of the carved
teakwood chairs.

"He said he loved you; I heard him," she said weakly. "He--he was going
to put his arm around you!"

"Habit!" Jim put in, trying to smile. "You see, Aunt Selina, it's--well,
it's a habit I got into some time ago, and I--my arm does it without my
thinking about it."

"Habit!" Aunt Selina repeated, her voice thick with passion. Then she
turned to me. "Go to your room at once!" she said in her most awful
tone. "Go to your room and leave this--this shocking affair to me."

But if she had reached her limit, so had I. If Jim chose to ruin
himself, it was not my fault. Any one with common sense would have known
at least to close the door before he went down on his knees, no matter
to whom. So when Aunt Selina turned on me and pointed in the direction
of the staircase, I did not move.

"I am perfectly wide awake," I said coldly. "I shall go to bed when I am
entirely ready, and not before. And as for Jim's conduct, I do not know
much about the conventions in such cases, but if he wishes to embrace
Miss Knowles, and she wants him to, the situation is interesting, but
hardly novel."

Aunt Selina rose slowly and drew the folds of her dressing gown around
her, away from the contamination of my touch.

"Do you know what you are saying?" she demanded hoarsely.

"I do." I was quite white and stiff from my knees up, but below I
was wavery. I glanced at Jim for moral support, but he was looking
idolatrously at Bella. As for her, quite suddenly she had dropped her
mask of indifference; her face was strained and anxious, and there were
deep circles I had not seen before, under her eyes. And it was Bella who
finally threw herself into the breach--the family breach.

"It is all my fault, Miss Caruthers," she said, stepping between Aunt
Selina and myself. "I have been a blind and wicked woman, and I have
almost wrecked two lives."

Two! What of mine?

"You see," she struggled on, against the glint in Aunt Selina's eyes.
"