“Never mind him”—­frantically.  “Listen!  There’s Jim up in the pantry.  Run, for the sake of Heaven!”

So—­I ran.  At the top of the stairs I met Jimmy, very crumpled as to shirt-front and dejected as to face.

“I’ve been hunting everywhere for you,” he said dismally.  “I thought you had added to the general merriment by falling downstairs and breaking your neck.”

I went past him with my chin up.  Now that I had time to think about it, I was furiously angry with him.

“Kit!” he called after me appealingly, but I would not hear.  Then he adopted different tactics.  He took advantage of my catching my foot in the lace of my gown to pass me, and to stand with his back against the door.

“You’re not going until you hear me, Kit,” he declared miserably.  “In the first place, for all you are down on me, is it my fault?  Honestly, now is it my fault?”

I refused to speak.

“I was coming home to be miserable alone,” he went on, “and—­oh, I know you meant well, Kit; but you asked all these crazy people here.”

“Perhaps you will give me credit for some things,” I said wearily.  “I did not give Takahiro smallpox, for instance, and—­if you will permit me to mention the fact—­Aunt Selina is not my Aunt Selina.”

“That’s what I wanted to speak to you about,” Jimmy went on wretchedly, trying not to look at me.  “You see, when they were rowing so about who would get the breakfast—­I never saw such a lot of people; half of them never touch breakfast, but of course now they want all kinds of things—­when they were talking, Aunt Selina said she knew you would get it, being the hostess, and responsible, besides knowing where things are kept.”  He had fixed his eyes on the orchids, and he looked shrunken, actually shrunken.  “I thought,” he finished, “you might give me a few pointers now, and I could come down in the morning, and—­and fuss up something, coffee and so on.  I would say you did it!  Oh, hang it all, Kit, why don’t you say something?”

“What do you want me to say?” I demanded.  “That I love to cook, and of course I’ll fix trays and carry them up in the morning to Anne Brown and Leila Mercer and the rest; and that I will have the shaving water ready—­”

“I know what I’m going to do,” Jimmy said, with a sudden resolution.  “Aunt Selina and her money can go to blazes.  I am going right upstairs and tell her the truth, tell her who you are, what I am, and all the rest of it.”  He opened the door.

“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” I gasped, catching him in time.  “Don’t you dare, Jimmy Wilson!  Why, what would they think of me?  After letting her call me Bella, and him—­Jim, if Mr. Harbison ever learns the truth—­I—­I will take poison.  If we are going to be shut up here together, we will have to carry it on.  I couldn’t stand the disgrace.”

In spite of an heroic effort, Jim looked relieved.  “They have been hunting for the linen closet,” he said, more cheerfully, “and there will be room enough, I think.  Harbison and I will hang out in the studio; there are two couches there.  I’m afraid you’ll have to take Aunt Selina, Kit.”