"Not now."
Ruth picked up Miss Felicia's wrap from the chair where that lady
had thrown it, mounted the stairs, peered from between the pots of
geraniums screening a view of the street with the Hicks Hotel
dominating one corner, wondered which window along the desolate
front gave Jack light and air, and with whispered instructions to
the nurse to be sure and let her know when her father awoke, shut
herself in her room.
As for the horrible old ogre who had made all the trouble, nipping
off buds, skewering butterflies and otherwise disporting herself
after the manner of busybodies who are eternally and forever
poking their thin, pointed noses into what doesn't concern them,
no hot, scalding tears, the Scribe regrets to say, dimmed her
knowing eyes, nor did any unbidden sigh leap from her old heart.
Foolish young people ought to thank her really for what she had
done--what she would still try to do--and they would when they
were a year older.
Poor, meddling Miss Felicia! Have you forgotten that night thirty
years ago when you stood in a darkened room facing a straight,
soldierly looking man, and listened to the slow dropping of words
that scalded your heart like molten metal? Have you forgotten,
too, the look on his handsome face when he uttered his protest at
the persistent intermeddling of another, and the square of his
broad shoulders as he disappeared through the open door never to
return again?
CHAPTER XVII
Some of the sunshine that had helped dry the muddy road, making
possible the path between Jack's abode and MacFarlane's hired
villa--where there was only room for Miss Felicia, Peter still
occupying his cell at Mrs.
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