“Listen, Jim,” I urged.  “It was always Bella who did things here; she managed the house, she tyrannized over her friends, and she bullied you.  Yes, she did.  Now she’s here, without your invitation, and she has to stay.  It’s your turn to bully, to dictate terms, to be coldly civil or politely rude.  Make her furious at you.  If she is jealous, so much the better.”

“How far would you sacrifice yourself on the altar of friendship?” he asked.

“You may pay me all the attention you like, in public,” I replied, and after we shook hands we went together to Bella.

There was an ominous pause when we went into the den.  Bella was sitting by the register, with her furs on, and after one glance over her shoulder at us, she looked away again without speaking.

“Bella,” Jim said appealingly.  And then I pinched his arm, and he drew himself up and looked properly outraged.

“Bella,” he said, coldly this time, “I can’t imagine why you have put yourself in this ridiculous position, but since you have—­”

She turned on him in a fury.

“Put myself in this position!”

She was frantic.  “It’s a plot, a wretched trick of yours, this quarantine, to keep me here.”

Jim gasped, but I gave him a warning glance, and he swallowed hard.

“On the contrary,” he said, with maddening quiet, “I would be the last person in the world to wish to perpetuate an indiscretion of yours.  For it was hardly discreet, was it, to visit a bachelor establishment alone at ten o’clock at night?  As far as my plotting to keep you here is concerned, I assure you that nothing could be further from my mind.  Our paths were to be two parallel lines that never touch.”  He looked at me for approval, and Bella was choking.

“You are worse that I ever thought you,” she stormed.  “I thought you were only a—­a fool.  Now I know you—­for a brute!”

Well, it ended by Jim’s graciously permitting Bella to remain—­there being nothing else to do—­and by his magnanimously agreeing to keep her real identity from Aunt Selina and Mr. Harbison, and to break the news of her presence to Anne and the rest.  It created a sensation beside which Anne’s pearls faded away, although they came to the front again soon enough.

Jim broke the news at once, gathering everybody but Harbison and Aunt Selina in the upper hall.  He was palpitatingly nervous, but he tried to carry it off with a high hand.

“It’s unfortunate,” he said, looking around the circle of faces, each one frozen with amazement, and just a suspicion, perhaps of incredulity.  “It’s particularly unfortunate for her.  You all know how high-strung she is, and if the papers should get hold of it—­well, we’ll all have to make it as easy as we can for her.”

With Jim’s eyes on them, they all swallowed the butler story without a gulp.  But Anne was indignant.

“It’s like Bella,” she snapped.  “Well, she has made her bed and she can lie on it.  I’m sure I shan’t make it for her.  But if you want to know my opinion, Mr. Harbison may be a fool, but you can’t ram two Bellas, both Nee Knowles, down Miss Caruthers’ throat with a stick.”