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Updated: June 2, 2025
"Morry, you mustn't tell tales on me," she whispered; and added pettishly: "Why ever did you just come to-night?" He tried to see her face. "What is it all about, Ephie?" he asked. "Then it WAS you, I saw, in the NONNE by the weir?" "Me? In the NONNE!" She was genuinely surprised. "You saw me?" He nodded.
Don't you think you take what has happened here a little too seriously? No doubt Ephie behaved foolishly. But was it after all any more than a girlish escapade?" "Too seriously?" Johanna turned her shortsighted eyes on the young man, and gazed at him almost pityingly.
"Don't cry, dear, don't cry," said the young man. "It's all right." But his thoughts were with Louise. He was apprehensive of what she might do next. As if in answer to his fear, she crossed the room. "Ask her to take her hands down. I want to see her face." Maurice bent over Ephie, and touched her shoulder. "Ephie, dear, do you hear? Look up, like a good girl, and speak to Miss Dufrayer."
Cayhill and Johanna were in the sitting-room; Johanna looked very surprised to see him. They had this moment risen from the supper-table, she told him; Ephie had only just got home in time. Before anything further could be said, Ephie herself came into the room; her face was flushed, and she did not seem well-pleased at his unexpected visit.
His face was red with the effort, and he hailed Maurice's appearance as a welcome diversion. But Ephie, too, greeted him with pleasure, and touching his arm, drew him back, so that they dropped behind the others.
Now that Johanna thought of it, a change had also come over Ephie's mode of treating Maurice; the gay insouciance of the early days had given place to the pert flippancy which, only the night before, had so pained her sister. What had brought about this change? Was it pique? Was Ephie chafing, in secret, at his prolonged absences, and was she, girl-like, anxious to conceal it from him?
With a rush of enlightenment, Maurice looked back at the young man, but this time Schilsky saw that he was being watched; stooping, he said a nonchalant word to his companion, and thereupon they went indoors again. All this passed like a flash, but it left, none the less, a disagreeable impression, and before Maurice had recovered from it, Ephie said: "Let us go in."
And Ephie coloured becomingly, raised her lashes, and distributed winning smiles. Then quiet had been restored, she assured them that they all very kind, but she would never let anyone go with her but Joan dear old Joan. They could not imagine how fond she was of Joan. "She is worth more than all of you put together."
But at the mention of Johanna, Ephie flung herself on the sofa again and beat the cushions with her hands. "Not Joan, not Joan!" she wailed. "No, I won't go home. What will she say to me? Oh, I am so frightened! She'll kill me, I know she will." And at Maurice's confident assurance that Johanna would have nothing but love and sympathy for her, she shook her head. "I know Joan.
"Put down your book, mother, please, and listen to me," continued Johanna, without any outward sign of impatience, and as she spoke, she drew another stocking over her hand. "What IS the matter, Joan? I wish you would let me be," answered Mrs. Cayhill querulously, still without looking up. "It's about Ephie, mother. But you can't hear me if you go on reading." "I can hear well enough," said Mrs.
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