The Priceless Pearl - 16 - Alice Duer Miller - Web Novel

"Is Uncle Anthony in love with you--like Mr. Williams?"

Ah, Pearl knew what that meant: Antonia had taken a long drive with her mother and Miss Wellington the day before! She picked her words carefully.

"I only saw your uncle once," she said.

"But Allen only saw you once or twice--and look at the darn thing!"

"Mr. Williams is not in the least in love with me."

"Miss Wellington said that some women have the power of rousing----"

"Antonia, I don't want to hear what she said."

"You don't like her, do you?"

"No."

"Shake," said Antonia heartily. "I don't like her, though she's very kind to me; but it doesn't seem to me"--Antonia's voice took on the flavor of meditation--"that she quite tells the truth. For instance, just before Uncle Anthony went away, she telephoned to him one morning and asked him to come over. He was playing a game of parcheesi with me--I'd teased him a good deal to play--and he said he couldn't come, and she--well, I couldn't hear what she was saying, but at last he said, rather