f with me. I never managed
to get her altogether. But she was clear enough about it at any rate,
that Rose was more in love with you than ever and she didn't blame you
for a thing. The thing that she seemed most anxious about was that her
mother shouldn't blame you. Of course that took the wind out of my sails
and I had to come back. So it's absurd for you to be talking as if she
had a real reason for--detesting you."

"She hadn't, then," said Rodney, and he walked uneasily away to the
window.

"Well, if you mean the other night, the only time you've seen her since,
then it's all the more ridiculous. What if you were angry and lost your
temper and hurt her feelings? Heavens! Weren't you entitled to, after
what she'd done? And when she'd left you to find it out like that?"

"I tell you you don't know the first thing about it."

"I don't suppose you--beat her, did you?" It was too infuriating, having
him meek like this!

His reply was barely audible. "I might better have done it."

Frederica sprang to her feet. "Well, then, I'll tell you!" she said. "I
won't go to her. I'll go if you'll give me a free hand. If you'll let me
tell her what I think of what she's done and the way she's done it--not
letting you know--not giving you a chance. But go and beg her to forgive
_you_, I won't.

"All right," he said dully. "You're within your rights, of course."

The miserable scene dragged on a little longer. Frederica cried and
pleaded and stormed, without moving him at all. He seemed distressed at
her grief, urged her to treat his request as if he hadn't made it; but
he explained nothing, answered none of her questions.

It was an enormous relief to her, and, she fancied, to him, for that
matter, when, after a premonitory knock at the door, Harriet walked in
on them.

The situation didn't need much explaining, but Frederica summed it up
while the others exchanged their coolly friendly greetings, with the
statement:

"Rod's been trying to get me to go to Rose and say that it was all his
fault, and I won't."

"Why not?" said Harriet. "What earthly thing does it matter whose fault
it is? He can have it his fault if he likes."

"You know it isn't," Frederica muttered rebelliously.

Harriet seated herself delicately and deliberately in one of the curving
ends of a little Victorian sofa, and stretched her slim legs out in
front of her.

"Certainly I don't care whose fault it is," she said. "You never get
anywhere by t