She paused here and looked at me, quite frightened.

“Around where, exactly?” I demanded.

“Well,” she went on, “your father was always dropping hints that he would buy us out at the price we paid, and so Harry went to his office and tried to make a deal.  But your father said it wasn’t reasonable to expect him to pay for the new transmission, too—­and as Harry didn’t want to, and couldn’t, the whole thing hung fire till Harry ran into Morty Truslow on the street.  Morty offered him a thousand dollars right off for his half-interest,” continued Nelly; “you know how free-handed be is, and rich, and Harry just jumped at it and walked off with the check.”

“But you only paid half of seven hundred and fifty dollars in the first place!” I exclaimed.

“Well, you see,” said Nelly, “that car has gone up since.  It’s ‘appreciated,’ as Harry calls it.  And just think what a fortune it has stood us in for repairs!”

“It’s the most horrid, mean, treacherous thing one person ever did to another!” I cried; “you know I wouldn’t speak to Morty Truslow if be had the only monkey-wrench in the world and I was carbonized on a country road.  I think you have acted detestably, and so has he, and I consider it downright caddish for him to buy a half-interest in anything I am connected with”

“Oh, Virgie, you don’t know how bad be feels!” said Nelly.  “He told me be had just been breaking his heart, and that you wouldn’t answer his letters or anything, and if you would only let him talk for fifteen minutes he’d explain everything and you’d take him back.”

“I won’t take him back,” I said.

“He wears a little flower you gave him next his heart,” continued Nelly, “and when he speaks about you it is with tears in his eyes, and if you weren’t made of flint and rock candy you’d feel so sorry for him you couldn’t sleep!”

“What did be offer you to say all this, Nelly?” I demanded.

“Only a pearl horseshoe,” she returned, quite unabashed.  “Said I might choose it for myself at Helbe’s if I could persuade you to give him a fifteen minutes’ talk”

“I am sorry about the pearl horseshoe,” I said ironically, “but you might as well give up the idea right now.  And if he talked forty times fifteen minutes it wouldn’t make the least difference in the world.  He thinks he’s so handsome and so well off and that so many girls are crazy about him that he only, has to whistle for you to come!”

“If it wasn’t for Harry I would,” she said; “that is, if he whistled loud enough and there wasn’t too much of a crowd thinking he meant them!  Oh, Virgie, it’s just like Faversham to hear him talk, and I can’t think how anybody could be such a little fool as to say no!”

“If you call that being a little fool I guess I am,” I said, “though for a year he was the one man in my life, and if it hadn’t been for Mrs. Gettridge—­well, it’s all off, now, and it’s going to stay off,—­and his owning half the bubble won’t make the least difference in the world!”