"You
never understood me, Inza!"
"And do you fancy for a moment that you understand me?"
"Perhaps not; but I can see--I'm not blind!"
"Oh, yes, jealous people can see things that no one else can," laughed
Inza, with a provoking toss of her proud head.
"Do you want to make me hate you forever, Inza Burrage?" Elsie cried.
"You hurt me! You are heartless!"
A sudden look of deep pain shone in Inza's face, changing her manner in
a twinkling, and she turned away as if trying to conceal it.
"Of course, nothing ever hurts me!" she said bitterly. "I am steel and
iron, and all that! Your heart is tender, and such things hurt you!"
Elsie did not know what to say. She had tried to feel for a time that
Inza had ceased to care for Frank, and then had told herself that Inza
had no longer any right to care for him. She was beginning to realize
that questions of right and wrong cut very little figure in affairs of
the heart--that, in fact, love obeys no such laws.
When Inza turned back, her face had lost its trace of pain.
"Elsie," she said, "we will not quarrel about Frank, for Frank's sake.
It would distress him if he knew it. He must never know it. Promise me
that you will not say a word to him about it."
"Of course I won't say anything about it," Elsie agreed.
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