Sid spoke banteringly and Pat had some laughing rejoinder ready when a smothered sound, between a gasp and a cry, made them look at Rae.

“Great Scott, sis, you’ll singe your eyelashes if you let your eyes blaze like that,” said Sid.

Rae took no notice of him. She was looking at Pat.

“So this is your doing…you have driven him away,” she said in a low, tense tone…such a tone as Pat had never heard Rae use before…seventeen-year-old Rae whom Pat still thought of as a child. Pat almost laughed…but laughter suddenly fell dead on her lips. Why, the poor darling was in earnest! And how pretty she looked in her golden-brown dress with her flushed cheeks and overbright eyes! Her head positively shone like a lamp in the dark corner. She was so sweet…and absurd…and deadly serious. This last realization should have warned Pat but didn’t.

“Rae, dearest, don’t be foolish,” she said gently.

“Oh, don’t be foolish,” mocked Rae furiously. “That’s your attitude I know…has been right along. I am a mere baby of course…I have no rights…no feelings…no feelings at all…no claim to be considered a human being. ‘Don’t be foolish,’ says the wise Patricia. That really is a clever idea!”

Rae’s voice trembled with passion. She rushed out of the Little Parlor and up the stairs like a golden whirlwind. There were three doors on the way to her room and she banged them all.

“Whew!” whistled Sid. “I always knew she had a bad case on Wheeler but I didn’t think it went that deep.”

“Sid…you don’t think she cared really!”

“Oh, calf love no doubt. We all survive it. But it hurts at the time.” Sid laughed a bit bitterly.

Pat went up to her room. Rae was pacing up and down it like a caged animal. She turned a stormy young face on her sister.

“Leave me alone, can’t you? You’ve done me enough harm, haven’t you? You took him from me…deliberately. I saw you trying to attract him. What chance had I? Well, I forgave you. But now he’s gone…he’s gone…and I’ll never see him again…and I can’t stand it. I hate you…I hate you…I hate everything.”

“Please don’t let’s quarrel,” said Pat helplessly. In a desperate effort to be calm she picked up her best pair of silk stockings and began to polish the mirror with them, not in the least knowing what she held in her hand. It was the last straw for Rae.

“Who is quarrelling? Don’t try to put the blame on me.”

“Oh, Rae, Rae…don’t twist everything I say to mean something else.”