I am really at a loss to imagine why you came. I wrote you that I
was in the company of _trusted friends_."
"Friends?" I echoed aggrievedly. "Friends are all very well, of
course, but when you and I have just each other, aunty, I think it
is unkind of you to expect me to stay thousands of miles away from
you all by myself."
"But it was you who sent me to New York, and insisted on my staying
there!" she cried. Evidently she had been living over her wrongs.
"Yes--but how different!" I interrupted hastily. "There were the
cousins--of course I have to spare you sometimes to the rest of the
family!" Aunt Jane is strong on family feeling, and frequently
reproaches me with my lack of it.
But in expecting Aunt Jane to soften at this I reckoned without
Miss Higglesby-Browne. A dart from the cold gray eyes galvanized
my aunt into a sudden rigid erectness.
"My dear Virginia," she said with quavering severity, "let me
remind you that there are ties even dearer than those of
blood--soul-affinities, you know, and--and, in short, in my dear
friend Miss Higglesby-Browne I have met for the first time in my
life with a--a Sympathetic Intelligence that understands Me!"
So that was Violet's line! I surveyed the Sympathetic Intelligence
with a smiling interest.
"Really, how nice! And of course you feel quite sure that on your
side you thoroughly understand--Miss Higglesby-Browne?"
Miss Browne's hair was rather like a clothesbrush in her mildest
moods.
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