The Charm School
turned back to George and asked, "Whatcher mean?"
"He's always having interviews with her, and letters, and he's jealous of me. Can't you see that? But," said the exasperated George, "I don't suppose any one cares much how he feels, if it weren't that I'm afraid that she's getting fond of him."
This time the assertion roused some confirmatory memories in Mr. Johns. He recalled Elise's chill, trembling fingers, her eyes, her voice. He wheeled again on Austin, and this time met a glance too blank and steady to be normal. "Ha!" he said, and in the silence that followed this momentous monosyllable the loud, insistent tones of the supper march reached their ears. Johns got hastily to his feet.
"Good Lord!" he said. "There's supper. What will Mrs. Rolles say?"
"Mrs. who?" exclaimed Austin.
"Lady I'm taking to supper. Hope you'll stay, Bevans."
It seemed to Austin a proof of the finest delicacy of feeling on his part that after the events of the evening he did not want to see Susie, who, he knew, must be there if her mother was. He could not, he said to himself, speak to Susie without betraying the
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