None of us spoke. We turned out the lights and went upstairs and
took off our wraps and went to bed. It had been almost a fiasco.



Chapter XV. SUSPICION AND DISCORD

Every one was nasty the next morning. Aunt Selina declared that
her feet were frost-bitten and kept Bella rubbing them with ice
water all morning. And Jim was impossible. He refused to speak to
any of us and he watched Bella furtively, as if he suspected her
of trying to get him out of the house.

When luncheon time came around and he had shown no indication of
going to the telephone and ordering it, we had a conclave, and
Max was chosen to remind him of the hour. Jim was shut in the
studio, and we waited together in the hall while Max went up.
When he came down he was somewhat ruffled.

"He wouldn't open the door," he reported, "and when I told him it
was meal time, he said he wasn't hungry, and he didn't give a
whoop about the rest of us. He had asked us here to dinner; he
hadn't proposed to adopt us."

So we finally ordered luncheon ourselves, and about two o'clock
Jim came downstairs sheepishly, and ate what was left. Anne
declared that Bella had been scolding him in the upper hall, but
I doubted it. She was never seen to speak to him unnecessarily.