FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123  
124   125   126   127   128   129   130   >>  
, 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. "
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123  
124   125   126   127   128   129   130   >>  



Top keywords:
Selina
 

breach

 

turned

 
Caruthers
 
contamination
 
slowly
 

dressing

 

glanced

 

demanded

 

hoarsely


wavery
 
interesting
 

conduct

 

taking

 

forward

 

conventions

 

situation

 

Knowles

 

screeched

 

wishes


embrace
 

idolatrously

 

wicked

 
stepping
 

family

 
struggled
 
wrecked
 

indifference

 

strained

 

dropped


suddenly

 

anxious

 
finally
 
circles
 

support

 
perfectly
 

remarked

 

pleasantly

 

thinking

 

shouldn


passion

 

things

 
repeated
 

sherry

 
gasped
 
chairs
 

carved

 

teakwood

 
weakly
 

afraid