"Believe it? I _know_ it! I've been prayin' that you might see it
yourself before it is too late."
"Too late? What do you mean?"
"Just what I say." Her old chin trembled. "Before Augusta has lost every
spark of affection for you and me--before I am sent away."
He looked at her incredulously.
"You don't mean that?"
She nodded.
"I've been warned already. I'm in Dr. Harpe's way; she knows what I
think of her, and she'd rather have some stranger here."
"You amaze me. Does she dominate Augusta to such an extent as that!"
His mind ran back over the events of the past few weeks and he could see
that those occasions from which Dr. Harpe had been excluded had seemed
flat, stale, footless to Augusta. She had been absent-minded,
preoccupied, even openly bored. He recalled the fact now that it was
only at this woman's coming that animation had returned and that she had
hung absorbed, fascinated upon her words. She became alive in her
presence as though she drew her very vitality from this stronger-willed
woman.
"I've noticed a change--but I thought it was nerves--the altitude,
perhaps--and I've intended taking her with me on my next trip East."
"She wouldn't go."
"I can't believe that."
"Ask her," was the grim reply.
"She obeyed me in that other matter," Symes argued.
"Because she was _allowed_ to do so."
"I'm going to stop this intimacy; I'm tired of her interference--tired
of seeing her around--tired of boarding her, as a matter of fact, and I
_will_ end it." He spoke in intense exasperation.
"Look out, Andy P., you'll make a mistake if you try in that way. You
might have done it in the beginnin' or when I first warned you; but
Augusta's like putty in her hands now. She don't seem to have any will
of her own or gratitude--or affection. I'm tellin' you straight, Andy
P."
Symes considered.
"There is a way, if I could bring myself to do it."
"What's that?"
"Make Augusta jealous. Touch her pride, wound her vanity by making love
to Dr. Harpe. No," he put the thought from him vehemently, "I'm not that
kind of a hypocrite. But she can't be invulnerable--tell me her
weaknesses. You women know each other."