Page:Across the Stream.djvu/213

Rh her arm on the table, caused a vibration that demolished Babylon from garret to cellar.

"Oh, Jessie, I'm so sorry," she said, and she was; the fall of an ingenious card-house was the sort of thing that provoked her pity.

Jessie swept the cards together and seemed about to get up.

"It doesn't matter," she said. "It is bed-time, isn't it?"

Helena put her head wistfully on one side.

"Aren't you being horribly unkind to me?" she said. She did not suppose it was much use playing on the pathetic stop, that made, as a general rule, so insincere a bleating in her sister's ears, but it was worth trying.

"I don't think there is any use in talking, Helena," she said. "If I am unkind, if I can't bear what you have done, it is because I simply can't help it."

Helena fingered the debris of the card-house with those more delicate fingers that could caress and claw so exquisitely. Essentially, she cared not one atom what Jessie thought of her, but she wanted not to be uncomfortable for the next few weeks.

"Ah, that is it?" she added. "You are satisfied to hate and detest me because you can't help it. That seems to you a final and unanswerable excuse. But nobody else may do anything because she can't help it."

"But you could have helped what you have done," said Jessie. "You made Archie think you cared for him. You let him fall in love with you on that assumption."

"He let himself fall in love with me," said Helena. "That was not my fault. Besides …"

She wae silent a moment, weaving delicate spider-threads in her mind. She really wanted to propitiate Jessie just now, otherwise she would certainly have reminded her that she, anyhow, had allowed herself to