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They could never have torn him from my bosom then, and yet as it was as it was " She turned quickly, and, coming back, laid her hand on Miss Saidie's arm. "It is such a comfort to talk, dear Aunt Saidie," she added, "even though you don't understand half that I say. But you are good so good; and now if you'll lend me a nightgown I'll go to bed and sleep until my trunks come in the morning."
He had in his hand a book which he flung down with an annoyed gesture as his wife opened the door. It was perhaps no worse than others of its type, but it had not an honest moral tone and was not therefore, John Chetwynd considered, a desirable work for his young wife's perusal. "Have you read this?" he asked. "No; it is one of Saidie's. Is it interesting?"
Two or three of Saidie's friends, in light and eminently professional attire, were of the party, the women a good deal worse than the men; and they all returned together to Holly Street, where a meal had been prepared in the front parlours, the landlady having generously placed them at the disposal of her lodgers for the occasion.
Week after week passed lightly by in their brilliant setting, the hours on their winged feet danced by, and these two lived independent of all the world, wrapped up in their own intimate joy. One morning, just as he was about to leave the bungalow, he heard Saidie's voice calling him back. He turned and saw her smiling face hanging over the stair-rail above him.
Ripping out an oath with an angry snort, he drew forth Miss Saidie's walnut cake and held it squarely before the candle. "I declar, if she ain't been making walnut cake agin, and I told her last week I wan't going to have her wasting all my eggs. Look at it, will you? If she's beat up one egg in that cake she's beat up a dozen, to say nothing of the sugar!" "Don't scold her, grandfather.
"Why, Aunt Saidie, what queer, coarse china! What's become of the white-and-gold set I used to like?" A purple flush mounted, slowly to Miss Saidie's forehead. "I was afraid it would chip, so I packed it away," she explained. "Me and Brother Bill ain't used to any better than this, so we don't notice. Things will have to be mighty fine now, I reckon, since you've got back.
"I'll have to throw up the sponge, after all," she said wearily; "it is beyond me. They are right and I was wrong, I must have a rest." Saidie muttered something in reply, but when the door closed upon her sister, she sighed. "She is bad; there is no denying it," remarked the dresser, who was busily stroking out the roses which were to garland Saidie's dress.
"She was my wife till I saw you, Saidie. No one is my wife now, nor ever will be, but you." A soft glow of supreme pleasure and pride lighted up Saidie's great lustrous eyes. She bent her head and put her soft lips to his hand. "Have you forbidden this wife to come to you?" she asked after a minute. "Yes, I have; but she will come all the same.
A bottle of Miss Saidie's raspberry vinegar was hidden in one corner, and he tore the paper label from the cork and drank like a man who perishes from thirst. His energy, which had evaporated from fatigue and hunger, surged back in spasms of anger, and as he turned away, invigorated, from the safe, he realised as he had never done before the full measure of his rage against Maria.
But Bella had by no means surrendered her determination of going on the stage again, and was already with Saidie's assistance on the look-out for an engagement. It would be difficult to define her feelings towards her husband at this juncture.
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