He drew a long breath.

“I think I understand,” he said slowly, “but—­you could have saved me something.  I must have given you all a great deal of amusement.”

“Oh, no,” I protested.  “I—­I want to tell you—­”

But he deliberately left me and went over to the door.  There he turned and looked down at Aunt Selina.  He was a little white, but there was no passion in his face.

“Thank you for telling me all this, Miss Caruthers,” he said easily.  “Now that you and I know, I’m afraid the others will miss their little diversion.  Good night.”

Oh, it was all right for Jim to laugh and say that he was only huffed a little and would be over it by morning.  I knew better.  There was something queer in his face as he went out.  He did not even glance in my direction.  He had said very little, but he had put me as effectually in the wrong as if he had not kissed me—­deliberately kissed me—­that very evening, on the roof.

I did not go to sleep again.  I lay wretchedly thinking things over and trying to remember who Jezebel was, and toward morning I distinctly heard the knob of the door turn.  I mistrusted my ears, however, and so I got up quietly and went over in the darkness.  There was no sound outside, but when I put my hand on the knob I felt it move under my fingers.  The counter pressure evidently alarmed whoever it was, for the knob was released and nothing more happened.  But by this time anything so uncomplicated as the fumbling of a knob at night had no power to disturb me.  I went back to bed.

Chapter XX.  BREAKING OUT IN A NEW PLACE

Hunger roused everybody early the next morning, Friday.  Leila Mercer had discovered a box of bonbons that she had forgotten, and we divided them around.  Aunt Selina asked for the candied fruit and got it—­quite a third of the box.  We gathered in the lower hall and on the stairs and nibbled nauseating sweets while Mr. Harbison examined the telephone.

He did not glance in my direction.  Betty and Dal were helping him, and he seemed very cheerful.  Max sat with me on the stairs.  Mr. Harbison had just unscrewed the telephone box from the wall and was squinting into it, when Bella came downstairs.  It was her first appearance, but as she was always late, nobody noticed.  When she stopped, just above us on the stairs, however, we looked up, and she was holding to the rail and trembling perceptibly.

“Mr. Harbison, will you—­can you come upstairs?” she asked.  Her voice was strained, almost reedy, and her lips were white.

Mr. Harbison stared up at her, with the telephone box in his hands.

“Why—­er—­certainly,” he said, “but, unless it’s very important, I’d like to fix this talking machine.  We want to make a food record.”

“I’d like to break a food record,” Max put in, but Bella created a diversion by sitting down suddenly on the stair just above us, and burying her face in her handkerchief.