"Certainly," I said coldly. That was the way it was all along. Whenever

there was something to do that no one else would undertake--any

unpleasant responsibility--that entire mongrel household turned with one

gesture and pointed its finger at me! Well, it is over now, and I ought

not to be bitter, considering everything.

It was quite characteristic of that memorable evening (that is quite

novelesque, I think) that my interview with Jimmy should have a

sensational ending. He was terribly down, of course, and as I was trying

to pass him to get to the door, he caught my hand.

"You're a girl in a thousand, Kit," he said forlornly. "If I were not so

damnably, hopelessly, idiotically in love with--somebody else, I should

be crazy about you."

"Don't be maudlin," I retorted. "Would you mind letting my hand go?" I

felt sure Bella could hear.

"Oh, come now, Kit," he implored, "we've always got along so well. It's

a shame to let a thing like this make us bad friends. Aren't you ever

going to forgive me?"

"Never," I said promptly. "When I once get away, I don't want ever to

see you again. I was never so humiliated in my life. I loathe you!"

Then I turned around, and, of course, there was Aunt Selina with her

eyes protruding until you could have knocked them off with a stick, and

beside her, very red and uncomfortable, Mr. Harbison!

"Bella!" she said in a shocked voice, "is that the way you speak to your

husband! It is high time I came here, I think, and took a hand in this

affair."

"Oh, never mind, Aunt Selina," Jim said, with a sheepish grin.

"Kit--Bella is tired and nervous. This is a h--deuce of a situation.

No--er--servants, and all that."

But Aunt Selina did mind, and showed it. She pulled the unlucky Harbison

man through the door and closed it, and then stood glaring at both of

us.

"Every little quarrel is an apple knocked from the tree of love," she

announced oratorically.

"This was a very little quarrel," Jim said, edging toward the door;

"a--a green apple, Aunt Selina, a colicky little green apple." But she

was not to be diverted.

"Bella," she said severely, "you said you loathed him. You didn't mean

that."

"But I do!" I cried hysterically. "There isn't any word to tell how

I--how I detest him."

Then I swept past them all and flew to Bella's dressing room and locked

myself in. Aunt Selina knocked until she was tired, then gave up and

went to bed.

That was the night Anne Brown's pearl collar was stolen!




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