Page:Early Autumn (1926).pdf/93

 "It is a great pleasure," he said. "Of course, I have seen Mrs. Struthers many times . . . at the horse shows . . . the whippet races."

Aunt Cassie was drawn up, stiff as a poker, with an air of having found herself unexpectedly face to face with a rattlesnake.

"I have had the same experience," she said. "And of course I've seen all the improvements you have made here on the farm." The word "improvements" she spoke with a sort of venom in it, as if it had been instead a word like "arson."

"We'll have some tea," observed Sabine. "Sit down, Aunt Cassie."

But Aunt Cassie did not unbend. "I promised Olivia to be back at Pentlands for tea," she said. "And I am late already." Pulling on her black gloves, she made a sudden dip in the direction of O'Hara. "We shall probably see each other again, Mr. O'Hara, since we are neighbors."

"Indeed, I hope so. . . ."

Then she kissed Sabine again and murmured, "I hope, my dear, that you will come often to see me, now that you've come back to us. Make my house your own home." She turned to O'Hara, finding a use for him suddenly in her warfare against Sabine. "You know, Mr. O'Hara, she is a traitor, in her way. She was raised among us and then went away for twenty years. She hasn't any loyalty in her."

She made the speech with a stiff air of playfulness, as if, of course, she were only making a joke and the speech meant nothing at all. Yet the air was filled with a cloud of implications. It was the sort of tactics in which she excelled.

Sabine went with her to the door, and when she returned she discovered O'Hara standing by the window, watching the figure of Aunt Cassie as she moved indignantly down the road in the direction of Pentlands. Sabine stood there for a moment, studying the straight, strong figure outlined against