"Which attests, in any event, my morals to be above reproach. You should be pleased."
"To roll it into a pill, your book seems pretty much like any other book; and it has made me hold my own particular boy's picture more than once against my cheek and say, 'You didn't write books, did you, dear? --You did nicer things than write books'--and he did .... I hear many things of you...."
"Oh, well!" I brilliantly retorted, "you mustn't believe all you hear." And I felt that matters were going very badly indeed.
"Robin, do you not know that your mess of pottage must be eaten with you by the people who care for you?--and one of them dislikes pottage. Indeed, I _would_ have liked the book, had anybody else written it. I almost like it as it is, in spots, and sometimes I even go to the great length of liking you,--because 'if only for old sake's sake, dear, you're the loveliest doll in the world.' There might be a better reason, if you could only make up your mind to dispense with pottage...."
The odd part of it, even to-day, is that Bettie was saying precisely what I had been thinking, and that to hear her say it made me just twice as petulant as I was already.
"Now, please don't preach," I said. "I've heard so much preaching lately--dear," I added, though I am afraid the word was rather obviously an afterthought.
"Oh, I forgot you stayed over for Stella Blagden's funeral. You were quite right. Stella was a dear child, and I was really sorry to hear of her death."
"Really!" It was the lightest possible additional flick upon the raw, but it served.
"Yes,--I, too, was rather sorry, Bettie, because I have loved Stella all my life. She was the first, you see, and, somehow, the others have been different. And--she disliked dying. I tell you, it is unfair, Bettie,--it is hideously unfair!"
"And why should you be living," I said, in half-conscious absurdity, "when she is dead? Why, look, Bettie! even that fly yonder is alive. Setebos accords an insect what He grudges Stella! Her dying is not even particularly important. The big news of the day is that the President has started his Pacific tour, and that the Harvard graduates object to his being given an honorary degree, and are sending out seven thousand protests to be signed. And you're alive, and I'm alive, and Peter Blagden is alive, and only Stella is dead. I suppose she is an angel by this. But I don't care for angels. I want just the silly little Stella that I loved,--the Stella that was the first and will always be the first with me. For I want her--just Stella--! Oh, it is an excellent jest; and I will cap it with another now. For the true joke is, I came to Fairhaven, across half the world, with an insane notion of asking you to marry me,--you who are 'really' sorry that Stella is dead!" And I laughed as pleasantly as one may do in anger.