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_ The noise of her tumultuous entrance was evidently startling in the
quiet house, for upon the bang of the door there followed the crash
of a decanter, dropped upon the floor of the dining-room at the end
of the hall; and, after a rumble of indistinct profanity, Roscoe
came forth, holding a dripping napkin in his hand.
"What's your excitement?" he demanded. "What do you find to go
into hysterics over? Another death in the family?"
"Oh, it's funny! she gasped. "Those old frost-bitten people! I guess
THEY'RE getting their come-uppance!" Lying prone, she elevated her
feet in the air, clapped her heels together repeatedly, in an ecstasy.
"Come through, come through!" said her husband, crossly. "What you
been up to?"
"Me?" she cried, dropping her feet and swinging around to face him.
"Nothing. It's them! Those Vertreeses!" She wiped her eyes.
"They've had to sell their piano!"
"Well, what of it?"
"That Mrs. Kittersby told me all about 'em a week ago," said Sibyl.
"They've been hard up for a long time, and she says as long ago as
last winter she knew that girl got a pair of walking-shoes re-soled
and patched, because she got it done the same place Mrs. Kittersby's
cook had HERS! And the night of the house-warming I kind of got
suspicious, myself. She didn't have one single piece of any kind of
real jewelry, and you could see her dress was an old one done over.
Men can't tell those things, and you all made a big fuss over her,
but I thought she looked a sight, myself! Of course, EDITH was
crazy to have her, and--"
"Well, well?" he urged, impatiently.
"Well, I'm TELLING you! Mrs. Kittersby says they haven't got a THING!
Just absolutely NOTHING--and they don't know anywhere to turn! The
family's all died out but them, and all the relatives they got are
very distant, and live East and scarcely know 'em. She says the whole
town's been wondering what WOULD become of 'em. The girl had plenty
chances to marry up to a year or so ago, but she was so indifferent
she scared the men off, and the ones that had wanted to went and
married other girls. Gracious! they were lucky! Marry HER? The man
that found himself tied up to THAT girl--"
"Terrible funny, terrible funny!" said Roscoe, with sarcasm. "It's
so funny I broke a cut-glass decanter and spilled a quart of--"
"Wait!" she begged. "You'll see. I was sitting by the window a
little while ago, and I saw a big wagon drive up across the street
and some men go into the house. It was too dark to make out much,
and for a minute I got the idea they were moving out--the house
has been foreclosed on, Mrs. Kittersby says. It seemed funny, too,
because I knew that girl was out riding with Bibbs. Well, I thought
I'd see, so I slipped over--and it was their PIANO! They'd sold it
and were trying to sneak it out after dark, so nobody'd catch on!"
Again she gave way to her enjoyment, but resumed, as her husband
seemed about to interrupt the narrative. "Wait a minute, can't you?
The old lady was superintending, and she gave it all away. I sized
her up for one of those old churchy people that tell all kinds of
lies except when it comes to so many words, and then they can't.
She might just as well told me outright! Yes, they'd sold it; and
I hope they'll pay some of their debts. They owe everybody, and last
week a coal-dealer made an awful fuss at the door with Mr. Vertrees.
Their cook told our upstairs girl, and she said she didn't know WHEN
she'd seen any money, herself! Did you ever hear of such a case as
that girl in your LIFE?"
"What girl? Their cook?"
"That Vertrees girl! Don't you see they looked on our coming up into
this neighborhood as their last chance? They were just going down and
out, and here bobs up the green, rich Sheridan family! So they doll
the girl up in her old things, made over, and send her out to get a
Sheridan--she's GOT to get one! And she just goes in blind; and she
tries it on first with YOU. You remember, she just plain TOLD you
she was going to mash you, and then she found out you were the married
one, and turned right square around to Jim and carried him off his
feet. Oh, Jim was landed--there's no doubt about THAT! But Jim was
lucky; he didn't live to STAY landed, and it's a good thing for him!"
Sibyl's mirth had vanished, and she spoke with virulent rapidity.
"Well, she couldn't get you, because you were married, and she
couldn't get Jim, because Jim died. And there they were, dead broke!
Do you know what she did? Do you know what she's DOING?"
"No, I don't," said Roscoe, gruffly.
Sibyl's voice rose and culminated in a scream of renewed hilarity.
"BIBBS! She waited in the grave-yard, and drove home with him from
JIM'S FUNERAL! Never spoke to him before! Jim wasn't COLD!"
She rocked herself back and forth upon the divan. "Bibbs!" she
shrieked. "Bibbs! Roscoe, THINK of it! BIBBS!"
He stared unsympathetically, but her mirth was unabated for all that.
"And yesterday," she continued, between paroxysms--"yesterday she came
out of the house--just as he was passing. She must have been looking
out--waiting for the chance; I saw the old lady watching at the
window! And she got him there last night--to 'PLAY' to him; the
old lady gave that away! And to-day she made him take her out in a
machine! And the cream of it is that they didn't even know whether he
was INSANE or not--they thought maybe he was, but she went after him
just the same! The old lady set herself to pump me about it to-day.
BIBBS! Oh, my Lord! BIBBS!"
But Roscoe looked grim. "So it's funny to you, is it? It sounds
kind of pitiful to me. I should think it would to a woman, too."
"Oh, it might," she returned, sobering. "It might, if those people
weren't such frozen-faced smart Alecks. If they'd had the decency
to come down off the perch a little I probably wouldn't think it was
funny, but to see 'em sit up on their pedestal all the time they're
eating dirt--well, I think it's funny! That girl sits up as if she
was Queen Elizabeth, and expects people to wallow on the ground before
her until they get near enough for her to give 'em a good kick with
her old patched shoes--oh, she'd do THAT, all right!--and then she
powders up and goes out to mash--BIBBS SHERIDAN!"
"Look here," said Roscoe, heavily; "I don't care about that one way
or another. If you're through, I got something I want to talk to you
about. I was going to, that day just before we heard about Jim."
At this Sibyl stiffened quickly; her eyes became intensely bright.
"What is it?"
"Well," he began, frowning, "what I was going to say then--" He broke
off, and, becoming conscious that he was still holding the wet napkin
in his hand, threw it pettishly into a corner. "I never expected I'd
have to say anything like this to anybody I MARRIED; but I was going
to ask you what was the matter between you and Lamhorn."
Sibyl uttered a sharp monosyllable. "Well?"
"I felt the time had come for me to know about it," he went on.
"You never told me anything--"
"You never asked," she interposed, curtly.
"Well, we'd got in a way of not talking much," said Roscoe. "It
looks to me now as if we'd pretty much lost the run of each other
the way a good many people do. I don't say it wasn't my fault.
I was up early and down to work all day, and I'd come home tired
at night, and want to go to bed soon as I'd got the paper read--
unless there was some good musical show in town. Well, you seemed
all right until here lately, the last month or so, I began to see
something was wrong. I couldn't help seeing it."
"Wrong?" she said. "What like?"
"You changed; you didn't look the same. You were all strung up and
excited and fidgety; you got to looking peakid and run down. Now
then, Lamhorn had been going with us a good while, but I noticed
that not long ago you got to picking on him about every little thing
he did; you got to quarreling with him when I was there and when I
wasn't. I could see you'd been quarreling whenever I came in and he
was here."
"Do you object to that?" asked Sibyl, breathing quickly.
"Yes--when it injures my wife's health!" he returned, with a quick
lift of his eyes to hers. "You began to run down just about the time
you began falling out with him." He stepped close to her. "See here,
Sibyl, I'm going to know what it means."
"Oh, you ARE?" she snapped.
"You're trembling," he said, gravely.
"Yes. I'm angry enough to do more than tremble, you'll find. Go on!"
"That was all I was going to say the other day," he said. "I was
going to ask you--"
"Yes, that was all you were going to say THE OTHER DAY. Yes. What
else have you to say to-night?"
"To-night," he replied, with grim swiftness, "I want to know why you
keep telephoning him you want to see him since he stopped coming
here."
She made a long, low sound of comprehension before she said, "And
what else did Edith want you to ask me?"
"I want to know what you say over the telephone to Lamhorn," he said,
fiercely.
"Is that all Edith told you to ask me? You saw her when you stopped
in there on your way home this evening, didn't you? Didn't she tell
you then what I said over the telephone to Mr. Lamhorn?"
"No, she didn't!" he vociferated, his voice growing louder. "She
said, 'You tell your wife to stop telephoning Robert Lamhorn to come
and see her, because he isn't going to do it!' That's what she said!
And I want to know what it means. I intend--"
A maid appeared at the lower end of the hall. "Dinner is ready," she
said, and, giving the troubled pair one glance, went demurely into
the dining-room. Roscoe disregarded the interruption.
"I intend to know exactly what has been going on," he declared.
"I mean to know just what--"
Sibyl jumped up, almost touching him, standing face to face with him.
"Oh, you DO!" she cried, shrilly. "You mean to know just what's what,
do you? You listen to your sister insinuating ugly things about your
wife, and then you come home making a scene before the servants and
humiliating me in their presence! Do you suppose that Irish girl
didn't hear every word you said? You go in there and eat your dinner
alone! Go on! Go and eat your dinner alone--because I won't eat with
you!"
And she broke away from the detaining grasp he sought to fasten upon
her, and dashed up the stairway, panting. He heard the door of her
room slam overhead, and the sharp click of the key in the lock. _
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