"
"You don't mind my talking, do you? It's a relief. I couldn't talk to
any one over there. The whole place seemed to be suffocating. I had
to talk. I'll tell you why; I wanted to go into the jungle and see
what it is the palms hide back there at night. Isn't it ludicrous--or
ghastly--whichever way you look at it?"
"You aren't alone over there? Mrs. Livingstone is still there, isn't
she?"
"Yes, Aunty's still there. I'm safely chaperoned." She laughed with a
note of hardness in her young voice. "What a chaperon! If she knew I
was here talking to you I believe it would drive her mad. She guards
me so closely--when it pleases her to do so."
She laughed bitterly again.
"That's why she brought me down here alone to--that house. I am
beginning to understand Aunty. I never knew why she guarded me so
carefully before. My mother died before I could remember. Aunty
brought me up. She's my father's sister. She brought me up well, for
her purpose. I've been in schools all my life it seems until last
winter. Then she brought me out, in Washington. Since then--Society.
You see, we haven't got money. People think we have, but we haven't.
So I've been on display, set up by Aunty in one of society's shop
windows, like goods in the Boardwalk booths at Atlantic City.
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