Miss Summers was furious; she turned and stared at Mrs. Sam, who was smiling at the fire.

“Let Arabella in,” she said to me in an undertone, “or I’ll open the pantry door!”

“Open the door!” I retorted.  I was half hysterical, but it was no time to weaken.  She looked me straight in the eye for fully ten seconds; then, to my surprise, she winked at me.  But when she turned on Mr. Sam she was cold rage again and nothing else.

“I am not going to leave, if that is what you are about to suggest,” she said.  “I’ve been trying to see Dicky Carter the last ten days, and I’ll stay here until I see him.”

“It’s a delicate situation—­”

“Delicate!” she snapped.  “It’s indelicate it’s indecent, that’s what it is.  Didn’t I get my clothes, and weren’t we to have been married by the Reverend Dwight Johnstone, out in Salem, Ohio?  And didn’t he go out there and have old Johnstone marry him to somebody else?  The wretch!  If I ever see him—­”

A glass dropped in the pantry and smashed, but nobody paid any attention.

“Oh, I’m not going until he comes!” she continued.  “I’ll stay right here, and I’ll have what’s coming to me or I’ll know the reason why.  Don’t forget for a minute that I know why Mr. Pierce is here, and that I can spoil the little game by calling the extra ace, if I want to.”

“You’re forgetting one thing,” Mrs. Sam said, facing her for the first time, “if you call the game, my brother is worth exactly what clothes he happens to be wearing at the moment and nothing else.  He hasn’t a penny of his own.”

“I don’t believe it,” she sniffed.  “Look at the things he gave me!”

“Yes.  I’ve already had the bills,” said Mr. Sam.

She whirled and looked at him, and then she threw back her head and laughed.

“You!” she said.  “Why, bless my soul!  All the expense of a double life and none of its advantages!”

She went out on that, still laughing, leaving Mrs. Sam scarlet with rage, and when she was safely gone I brought Mr. Dick out to the fire.  He was so limp he could hardly walk, and it took three glasses of the wine and all Mr. Sam could do to start him back to the shelter-house.  His sister would not speak to him.

Mike went to Mr. Pierce that day and asked for a raise of salary.

He did not get it.  Perhaps, as things have turned out, it was for the best, but it is strange to think how different things would have been if he’d been given it.  He was sent up later, of course, for six months for malicious mischief, but by that time the damage was done.

CHAPTER XX

EVERY DOG HAS HIS DAY

That was on a Saturday morning.  During the golf season Saturday is always a busy day with us, with the husbands coming up for over Sunday, and trying to get in all the golf, baths and spring water they can in forty-eight hours.  But in the winter Saturday is the same as any, other day.