Will You Love Me in September

I pretended to laugh, but a terrible uneasiness persisted. "You're romancing," I said.

"I'd die for you, Clarissa," she said fiercely.

"No, you won't," I retorted sharply. "You're going to live for me.”

^'Oh, all right," she said almost grudgingly. "Now, what about getting dressed and coming for a stroll in the wood. Be ready in half an hour.”

"Can I have my breakfast first? I'm starving.”

I laughed and, bending, kissed her.

We walked through the woods to the dene hole.

"Do be careful, Sabrina," I said. "If ever you come to the woods alone, don't go too near.”

"All right. I won't. I don't care about the old dene hole now anyway.”

I could see that she thought our domestic drama was far more interesting than the dene hole.

A few days later I was seated in the garden on the wooden seat close to the shrubbery when Sabrina came out and sat beside me. She looked both secretive and triumphant, so that I knew something she considered important had happened.

"Well?" I asked.

"I've found something. I think it could be an important clue.”

"Well, tell me.”

"You'll think I was wrong to do this. Promise you won't.”

"How can I until I know what it is?”

"I've been watching them. ...”

"Who?”

"Oh, you know. Lance and Aimee. I'll catch them-then we'll know for sure. But this is even better. Her door was open when I went past, so I looked in. She was sitting at her dressing table, and I saw her take something out of a drawer. She kept looking at it, and I wondered what it was.”

"You were a long time passing," I said. "How did you manage to see so much?”

"Well, I stopped a little while.”

"And spied on her.”

"I am a sort of spy. That's my job. I discover things. But you wait and see what I've found. I waited until she had gone out and then I went to her room. I saw where she had put this thing she was looking at. You know the secret drawer. You have to take out one drawer and there's another drawer behind it. That is where she had put it ... in the secret drawer-so it must have been a secret. So I went in and found.

. . Guess.”

"You tell me.”

She put her hand in her pocket and when she withdrew it she was holding something in the palm of her hand. It was the bezoar ring.

I was so startled to see it that I gasped. She watched me with satisfaction.

"He gave it to her. He gave her your ring.”

"No-he lost it at the tables.”

"That was what he told you." Sabrina spoke scornfully. "She wanted it. She said, 'Get me the bezoar ring and I'll be yours.' So he just gave it to her.”

I shook my head, but of course I half believed what she was telling.

I sat staring at the ring. I was wretchedly unhappy, for I felt in that moment that there was more than a pinch of reality in Sabrina's wild imaginings.

She was watching me intently. "They took it away," she said darkly, "because it was taking the poison out of the tisane.”

I laughed, a little unconvincingly. I didn't want her to know that I was worried.

I think that at times Sabrina herself did not believe in these accusations. It was a game to her, like charades and I Spy. She had always loved treasure hunts and games of detection.

"You won't need a taster now," she said. "You have the ring.”

I said thoughtfully, "I think the best thing you can do is take it back and put it where you found it.”

She was astounded, and I went on slowly, playing her game, "It is best for them not to know that we know where it is.”

She nodded darkly.

I sat still, watching her speed across the grass to the house.

Was it possible? I asked myself. Was he in love with my sister? It was feasible enough.

She was attractive and she shared that all-consuming passion. They were together a great deal. She was often invited to accompany him to gambling parties. I was left out because people knew I did not care to play. How often had I heard them laughing together or growing excited as they discussed the manner of some past play!

Was it so absurd? Was I willfully blind to what was happening about me? Did I need the awareness and the possessive love of a child to make the picture clear to me?

* * *

After that I seemed to become conscious of a certain menace all about me. At times I thought it must be due to my condition. Women had strange fancies at such times.

Sabrina had planted suspicion in my mind-and it grew.