A shiver went through the girl. Then came a sobbing utterance. "I can't, I can't; but oh, if you only knew how I wish I could!" She broke down in tears. "Don't be mad with me, Georgy." "Oh," said Georgy, preparing to go, "it's not that I'm mad. I reckon you don't understand these things yet, Alexina." CHAPTER EIGHT It seemed all at once as if some wilful perversity seized Molly; at home she was so petulant Alexina dared not cross her, for to anger her was to make her cough; abroad she was gayer than any, almost to recklessness. Celeste, taciturn and secretive, kept herself between mother and daughter insistently, and often the door to Molly's room was locked until afternoon. Mrs. Garnier must not be disturbed, she said. One of these times, a day in late July, Alexina went out to the Carringfords'. Emily knew most of the comings and goings of Alexina and her mother. In her heart probably she was envious, though to Alexina she was concerned. "That picnic of last week is being talked about, Alexina," she said. Alexina flushed, but she was honest. "It ought to be," she said. Gaiety can tread close upon the heels of recklessness. But if Molly went the daughter had to go, for this very reason, though she could not tell Emily this. So she spoke of other things. "Do you know anything of Uncle Austen?" she asked. "Is he still taking his meals down-town and sleeping at the house?" Emily looked conscious. "Yes," she said, "I think he is." Somehow Alexina felt that Emily not only knew but wanted it to be felt that she knew. Then why hesitate and say only that she thought so? "How's Garrard?" Alexina asked suddenly. Garrard was young Doctor Ransome. Emily flushed a little, but she answered unconcernedly, "Well enough, I reckon." On Alexina's return to the hotel, the clerk stopped her in the corridor, looking a little embarrassed under the clear, surprised gaze of the young lady. "It's about a little matter with Mrs. Garnier; it's been running two months now." A moment after, as she went on blindly up the stairs, a folded paper in her hand, she understood; understood what Georgy had offered to share with her, what the taciturn secretiveness of Celeste meant. She went in through the parlour to her mother's room, from which of late she had been so much shut out. "Molly," she said, her voice sounding strange to herself, as she held out the paper open. Molly, risen on her pillow, looked at it, at her, her eyes growing big. She was frightened, and cowered a little, crumpling some letters in her lap. "Don't look at me like that, Malise," she said. "I've some of the money you gave me left--I'll help to pay it." That she was afraid only because of the bill! "Oh--" Alexina breathed it rather than uttered it. Molly, risen from her elbow to sitting posture, was looking at her with big, miserable eyes, her throat, so slight and pretty, swelling with the sobs coming.