“But she has no right to listen to him! She’s Jim’s!”
Mabel glanced up at him swiftly and then down at the pattern of the rug again.
“No,” she said. Then, after a long minute, she came close to Joe and put her hand over his again.
“Wouldn’t it be dreadful,” she said, “if the worst we fear should happen, and she should give up good old Jim for that fellow, whose chief recommendation is his money?”
“I couldn’t bear to think of it,” groaned Joe. “I’d rather lose every cent I have in the world than have it happen. Tell me that you don’t think it will ever come to that!”
“I don’t know, Joe,” said Mabel, sadly. “She’s so tantalizingly vague. Perhaps it’s the strain she’s under on account of mother that makes her so different from her usual self. I can’t understand Clara any more.”
There was a long silence, and then Joe roused himself to ask dully:
“Oh, I wouldn’t tell Jim!” exclaimed Mabel, in alarm. “In the first place, we’re not clear enough about what Clara means to do. Perhaps it won’t amount to anything after all. And if it does, it’ll be bad enough when it comes without our doing anything to hasten it.”
“I can’t understand it,” said Joe, gloomily. “There never seemed to be two people more perfectly made for each other than Jim and Clara--always excepting ourselves,” he hastened to add, as he pressed her hand--“and it will be one of the greatest blows of my life if there should be any break between them. Clara seemed to be dead in love with Jim; and as for him, he fairly worships the ground she walks on. When he gets one of her letters, he’s dead to the world. And he’s one of the finest fellows that ever breathed. I look on him as a brother. He hasn’t any bad habits, is as straight as a string, a splendid specimen of manhood, handsome, well educated--what on earth could any girl ask for more? And he’s making a splendid income too. Has Clara suddenly gone crazy?”
“It’s beyond me,” replied Mabel. “Clara is the dearest girl, but just now I’d like to give her a good shaking. Lots of girls of course are dazzled by millions, but I never believed Clara would be one of them. And perhaps she isn’t, Joe dear. We may be doing her a great injustice. We’ll have to wait and see.”
“Well, promise me, anyway, that you’ll write to her at once,” urged Joe. “I’d do it myself, but you girls can talk to each other about such things a good deal better than any man can. Try to bring her to her senses and urge her not to wreck her own life and Jim’s simply for money or social position. She’d only be gaining the shadow of happiness and losing the substance.”