"It's a fool thing anyhow," Max Reed wound up, "to celebrate the
anniversary of a divorce--especially--" Here he caught Jim's eye and
stopped. But I had suddenly remembered. BELLA DOWN IN THE BASEMENT!
Could anything have been worse? And of course she would have hysteria
and then turn on me and blame me for it all. It all came over me at once
and overwhelmed me, while Anne was crying and saying she wouldn't cook
if she starved for it, and Aunt Selina was taking off her wraps. I felt
queer all over, and I sat down suddenly. Mr. Harbison was looking at me,
and he brought me a glass of wine.
"It won't be so bad as you fear," he said comfortingly. "There will be
no danger once we are vaccinated, and many hands make light work. They
are pretty raw now, because the thing is new to them, but by morning
they will be reconciled."
"It isn't the work; it is something entirely different," I said. And it
was. Bella and work could hardly be spoken in the same breath.
If I had only turned her out as she deserved to be, when she first came,
instead of allowing her to carry through the wretched farce about seeing
Takahiro! Or if I had only run to the basement the moment the house was
quarantined, and got her out the areaway or the coal hole! And now time
was flying, and Aunt Selina had me by the arm, and any moment I expected
Bella to pounce on us through the doorway and the whole situation to
explode with a bang.
It was after eleven before they were rational enough to discuss ways and
means, and, of course, the first thing suggested was that we all adjourn
below stairs and clean up after dinner. I could have slain Max Reed for
the notion, and the Mercer girls for taking him up.
"Of course we will," they said in a duet. "What a lark!" And they
actually began to pin up their dinner gowns. It was Jim who stopped
that.
"Oh, look here, you people," he objected, "I'm not going to let you do
that. We'll get some servants in tomorrow. I'll go down and put out the
lights. There will be enough clean dishes for breakfast."
It was lucky for me that they started a new discussion then and there
about who would get the breakfast. In the midst of the excitement I
slipped away to carry the news to Bella. She was where I had left her,
and she had made herself a cup of tea, and was very much at home, which
was natural.
"Do you know," she said ominously, "that you have been away for two
hours; and that I have gone through agonies of nervousness for fear Jim
Wilson would come down and think I came here to see him?"