The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary Part 5

"I can imagine so," he said. He was suddenly acutely aware of feeling very awkward, and of finding her different-quite different from what she had seemed up in her brother's room.

"What is it?" she asked after a minute, looking up at him; and then she showed that she was conscious of the change, for she added: "Something has happened; Bob has been saying mean things about me to you?"

"Yes, he did tell me something," he admitted; and just then the butler announced dinner.

"What did he tell you?" she asked, as they moved away. "How could he say anything worse than what he said before me?"

"He told me something that was worse-much worse."

She looked troubled and as if she did not understand.

"But he said that I was a flirt, and that I couldn't speak the truth, and that I drove people-"

"Yes, I remember all that; but this was infinitely worse."

"Infinitely worse!"

"Yes."

She stopped in an angle where the big room dwindled into a narrow gallery, and stared astonished.

"I can't at all understand," she said.

"No, you can't," he said, "and I can't tell you-I mustn't tell you-how terrible it is to me to look at you and think of what he told me."

After a second she went on again and presently they entered the dining-room. The confusion of rustling skirts and sliding chairs quite covered their speech for a moment and made them seem almost alone. Her hand had been resting on his arm and now she drew it out, looking up at him again as she did so. Her eyes had a premonitory mist over them.

"For Heaven's sake," she said very earnestly, "tell me what he said?"

He was silent.

"Tell me," she pleaded.

He was still silent.

"Tell me," she said imperiously.

He continued silent. They sat down.

"Mr. Denham," she said, as she took up her napkin, and her voice grew very low, and yet he heard, "I don't think that we can pretend to be joking any longer. You are my brother's friend, and I am a married woman. Please treat me as you should."

"That's just it," said Jack; "that's all there is to it. It wouldn't have amounted to anything except for that-or perhaps, if it hadn't been for that, it might have amounted to a great deal."

"If it hadn't been for what?"

"For your being married."

She quite started in her seat.

"What do you mean?"

"You see I never knew it before."

"You never knew what before?"

"That you were married."

"Until when?"

"Until after you went out of the room to-night."

The men were putting the clams around. She seemed to reflect. And then she peppered and salted them before she spoke.

"Bob is very wrong to talk so," she said at last, picking up her fork, "when you're his friend, too."

He poked his clams-he hated clams.

"I suppose men think it's amusing to do such things," she continued, "but I think it's as ill-bred as practical joking."

"But you are married," he said, trying fiercely to pepper some taste into the tasteless things before him.

"Yes, I'm married," she admitted tranquilly, "but, then, my husband went to Africa so soon afterwards that he hardly seemed to count at all. And then he was killed there; so, after that, he seemed to count less than ever."

The air danced exclamation points and the man on the other side spoke to her then so that her turning to answer him gave Jack time to rally his wits.

(A widow!)

Then she turned back and said:

"I think Bob mystified you unnecessarily. Of course I don't flatter myself that you've suffered."

"Oh, but I have," he hastened to a.s.sure her.

(A widow! A widow!)

"But it always makes a difference whether a woman is married or not."

"I should say it did," he interrupted again. "It makes all the difference in the world."

At that she laughed outright, and someone suddenly abstracted the distasteful clams and subst.i.tuted for them a golden and glorious soup, and music sounded forth from some invisible quartet, and-and-

(A widow! A widow! A widow!)

CHAPTER FIVE - THE DAY AFTER FALLING IN LOVE