our mother's hospitality! Couldn't you get me to
Farwell's house?"

"And who would take care of you there--men-servants? Nonsense!" said
Jemima, briskly. "Mother wouldn't hear of it, and neither would I. Don't
talk now. Just drink your coffee." (She had brought it hot in a thermos
bottle.) "And thank your stars you weren't killed outright in those wild
mountains. What an expedition!--feckless Jacky, that dreamer Philip, and
a mad peddler! It never would have happened if I'd been at home.--Get up
in front with the driver, Jack."

But this usurpation of her rights and privileges was more than the
younger one could bear.

"Feckless I may be, Jemmy Kildare," she cried hotly, "but it was me who
defended Mr. Channing from bears and things, me who helped with the
operation, me who brought him home all by myself! And it's me he wants
now--don't you, dear? Sit up in front yourself, smarty!"

Jemima obeyed, lifting astonished eyebrows. All the way to Storm her
eyebrows fluttered up and down like flags in a gale of wind. She
listened with straining ears to certain whisperings behind her; to
certain silences more pregnant than whispering.

"So-o!" she thought. "_That's_ what the child is up to! Calling him
'dear!' _That's_ why she wouldn't go visiting.--Have mother and I been
blind?"

CHAPTER XXXI

Channing began to be aware, despite the hospitality and comfort which
were provided for him in overflowing measure, that he was seeing very
little of Jacqueline under her mother's roof. In the ten days he had
been there they had managed hardly more than as many minutes alone
together. It was as if the entire household were entered into a
coalition against them.

No sooner would Jacqueline slip into his room in the morning, bearing a
dainty breakfast tray upon which she lavished all of her growing
domestic artistry, than the series of interruptions began. First it
would be the Madam herself, off on her rounds of inspection, but
stopping long enough for a few minutes' chat with her guest. She would
be followed by the elderly, apologetic housewoman, to put his things in
order, answering Jacqueline's imperious demand for haste with an humble
"Yais 'm, Miss Jacky, I's hurryin' fas' as a pusson kin go, but de Madam
wouldn't like it a bit ef I skimped comp'ny's room."

Then would come, perhaps, Big Liza the cook, to enquire for "comp'ny's"
health with elephantine coquetries; then Lige, erstwhile stable-boy and
butler, now pr