Page:The Better Sort (New York, Charles Scribners Sons, 1903).djvu/96

THE BETTER SORT "Oh," said Mrs. Bridgenorth with impatience, "the likeness will take care of itself. She'll put this and that together." Then she brought out her real apprehension. "She'll be jealous."

"Oh!" I laughed. But I was startled.

"She'll hate me!"

I wondered. "But I don't think she liked him."

"Don't think?" She stared at me, with her echo, over all that might be in it, then seemed to find little enough. "I say!"

It was almost comically the old Mrs. Bridgenorth. "But I gather from her that he was bad."

"Then what was she?"

I barely hesitated. "What were you?"

"That's my own business." And she turned again to the picture. "He was good enough for her to do that of him."

I took it in once more. "Artistically speaking, for the way it's done, it's one of the most curious things I've ever seen."

"It's a grand treat! " said poor Mrs. Bridgenorth more simply.

It was, it is really; which is exactly what made the case so interesting. "Yet I feel somehow that, as I say, it wasn't done with love."

It was wonderful how she understood. "It was done with rage."

"Then what have you to fear?"

She knew again perfectly. "What happened when he made me jealous. So much," she declared, "that if you'll give me your word for silence"

"Well?"

"Why, I'll double the money."

"Oh," I replied, taking a turn about in the excitement of our concurrence, "that's exactly what—to do a still better stroke for her—it had just come to me to propose!" 84