*****
John Carrington had spent a horrible morning. When the trap came back, and the stable boy Ike, who was driving, announced that Mr. Ned had sent him home, John Carrington promptly demanded why.
“I dunno,” said the boy. “He said, ‘That’s all,’ so I come.”
It couldn’t be possible that Ned had gone down the Tray-Spot! Ned, who had never shown the slightest eagerness to go down the Star. But what—— Andwhy——
John Carrington fumed, fretted and finally telephoned—to find to his consternation that Ned was underground. What under heavens had Trevanion been thinking of, to let him go? John Carrington raged at him. And what was Ned thinking of? He knew absolutely nothing of underground conditions. Had Richards decoyed him into it for some reason? Any reason of Richards was not a good one.
John Carrington hobbled along on his crutch from the divan on the veranda to the couch in his bedroom, and backagain, in a nervous unrest which made all places equally distasteful to him.
He raged at his own stupidity in letting Ned drive Trevanion over. He raged at this miserable leg of his that had held him prisoner so long. He raged at the strength which came back so slowly.
He sent Mrs. Kipley, who came up to remonstrate with him on this exhausting promenade, back to her kitchen in short order.
“He’s fairly beside himself, worrying over Mr. Ned, who ought to have had more sense than to do such a thing, anyway,” she scolded to Hemmy, feeling that she must vent her own nervousness in wrath upon some one. “Now what’s the matter with you?” she demanded, exasperatedly, for Hemmy’s face was assuming a chalk color.
“To think thathemay be in danger!” said Hemmy, with a gulp.
“The only danger you need to worry about is spoiling those doughnuts,” said Mrs. Kipley, severely.
And Hemmy, condemned for the next half hour to drop little doughy circles in boiling lard, wondered, as she choked back a sob, why even the luxury of grief was denied her.
Carrington found solitude fast becoming unbearable.
He sent for Mrs. Kipley. He ordered her to tell Kipley to have the trap over at the Tray-Spot, and when Ned came up at the noon hour, to tell him he was needed at home at once.
Kipley had no sooner started than Carrington thought of the lad’s dignity. He would not make a baby of him. He dispatched Ike on Ned’s saddle horse, to tell Kipley to place himself at Mr. Wade’s disposal, to tell Ned to bring Hastings and Mr. Wade back to luncheon, if he chose; but to telephone him at once from the mine in any case.
He hobbled out on the veranda to wait for noon. He told himself that he was getting to be an old woman; that Ned was young and strong, and able to take care of himself anywhere; that Trevanion would keep his eyes open for any deviltry on Richards’ part; that Richards would look after any party which contained Mr. Wade and Hastings.
Then the sound of galloping hoofs came ominously. Ike, fairly hanging on the Colonel’s neck, came flying homeward.
Disaster was stamped on his terrorized face.
Carrington swung up on his crutch as the boy ran stumblingly up the walk.
The clatter brought Mrs. Kipley and Hemmy to the door.
“What is it?” Carrington called, sharply.
“Water!” the boy choked. “The Tray-Spot is flooded, and they’re down there.”
“Who’s down there?” Carrington’s words cut.
“The young fellow—Trevanion—and Mr. Ned,” Ike sobbed.
Carrington’s ashy face worked curiously.
“And Richards?” he demanded.
“Come up and left ’em,” moaned the boy.
John Carrington wheeled, strode limpingly, and for the first time without a crutch, into the house, snatched something that glistened from the drawer of his desk, and came running rapidly in that uneven, limping way toward the saddled horse.
“For pity’s sake, what are you going to do?” Mrs. Kipley called out, as he managed, by the aid of the horse block, to get into the saddle.
The face that turned toward her was distorted with fury, but the twisting lips spoke only two words in a hoarsely guttural cry: “My boy!” But in them was anguish and revenge.
The Colonel shot forward like a shell from a gun.
*****
Kipley, mingling with the crowd around the shaft house, picking up every shred of information heavy-heartedly, saw with consternation the bulky figure pounding toward them on the Colonel. He was beside the horse’s head when John Carrington drew rein.
“They’ve gone down for ’em,” he said, swiftly, and his voice was weightedwith pity: “They’re going to get ’em on the level above.”
John Carrington gave no sign of hearing him. He was trying to dismount.
“Give me your shoulder,” he said, sharply. “This cursed leg——” He groaned as he came awkwardly and heavily to the ground. Then, steadying himself by Kipley’s shoulder, he hurried in that lunging, uneven way to the shaft.
He had flung the bridle automatically over the Colonel’s head, and that sagacious animal, well trained as a cavalry horse, stood motionless, waiting.
Kipley told all he had learned of the story, tersely, as he steadied him along.
Mr. Wade, waiting numbly by the shaft, found himself confronted by two men.
“You,” said a deep voice, strangling with rage, “came up and left my son.”
Mr. Wade raised his tired eyes to meet John Carrington’s bloodshot ones.
“They,” said Mr. Wade, mechanically, “came up and left my nephew.”
Then the consciousness of who this man was, and what Hastings had done, awoke in him a sense of pride of blood which restored him in voice and bearing to some semblance of himself.
“My nephew,” he repeated, with a touch of arrogance, “who refused to save himself and leave your son and your workman.” He straightened himself up with a dignity whose assumed calm hardly covered its pathos.
“As he would, naturally,” he finished.
John Carrington’s eyes softened.
“I thought he was that kind,” he said. “I like him.”
Mr. Wade’s heart warmed to a man who appreciated his nephew.
“Then my son would have done the same thing for him, in his place,” John Carrington added, proudly.
Young Carrington was a splendid young fellow, Mr. Wade thought. His sympathy swept out to his father.
“I’m sure of it,” he said. And the two men’s hands met.
When Mr. Wade spoke again, it was with a feeling of placing reliance in John Carrington.
“Are they doing all they can?” he said, simply. “You ought to know.”
Carrington’s mind swept like a microscope over the details of the rescuers’ plans, as Kipley had given them to him. “Tell me your side of it,” he said.
Mr. Wade told him mechanically.
Carrington pondered it.
“I’m inclined to think they are,” he said, at last.
For the conviction forced itself upon him that Richards would do his best to rescue Hastings. And if there was safety underground, Trevanion would find it. Time was the uncertain factor. If there was time!
Kipley brought a rough bench, and the two men sat down.
If there was silence between them, there was also the bond of a common anxiety.
*****
From the moment Richards had seen the three men left on the seventh level he had seen several other things clearly.
One was that it would be no longer possible to parry the question of pumping apparatus with Mr. Wade.
Another was that the only thing which could make the possibility of his continuing as manager of the Tray-Spot worth a straw was the quick, well-planned rescue of the three men. In the reaction of relief from casualty, resourcefulness now might plead for him.
And the last was that if Trevanion did not have time to get them up the first raise, they were caught in some one of those other raises, from which he had had the ladders removed only the week before.
Everything depended on the progress the three had been able to make, and the rapidity with which the water was coming.
When the cage dropped to the sixth level, Richards knew from its solitude that they had not been able to make the first raise, and Richards’ men understood that they were to do their best.
They ran to the second, calling down as they uncovered it: no answer. And the third: to hear only the hollow reverberation of their own voices; to see by the light of a falling candle the glint ofwater in the bottom. And the fourth: Richards himself, hurrying along in advance of his men toward the final raise to the south, acknowledged that this was a last and very slender hope.
As he hallooed down the raise the answering cry came back as swiftly to his ears as the sight of the three twinkling lights to his eyes. If the candle in his cap was a star of safety to them, those three lights were relief to him.
With swift brevity he ordered the ladders, then called down: “We’ll have you up, all right.”
And up the blackness came Hastings’ voice: “Hurry, for God’s sake; it’s ankle deep!”
The first ladder dropped swiftly to the position, to be nailed in place by the fastest man the Tray-Spot had. Three minutes. The second one sped down after it. Men stood by with ropes, if ladders should prove too slow.
Seven minutes, and the third ladder started down. This was rapid work, but the ropes slid down, as well. The fourth ladder touched the bottom of the hole.
The water was at their knees when they saw it come. Trevanion had begun to knot a rope around young Carrington’s waist. He flung it off now, to swing the slight young figure to his shoulders, to set the stiff feet firmly on the ladder. “I maun take him! ’E can’t do it alone!” he said to Hastings, as he swung himself up after the lad, supporting him.
And it was, in truth, fidelity to young Carrington, not hurry to save himself before Hastings. Nor did Hastings misunderstand. He would have gone last, anyway.
But it seemed a long way to the top. He was terribly stiff and wet and chilled, grateful to the strong hands that lifted him out at last.
He saw Trevanion ahead, half carrying Ned, refusing to let anyone else touch the lad.
It seemed to him that he followed more because he was led along than because of any will of his own. They were in the cage now, going up, and the cheers of the miners with them rose before them.
It would mean but one thing to those on the surface; a thing that made two haggard-faced, gray-headed men stand shaken with emotion as the cage came in sight.
To Mr. Wade the other faces were but a blur around Hastings; to Carrington nothing was clear but his son’s face, chilled blue-white, as the lad leaned in utter weariness against Trevanion.
Neither man saw Richards, nor heard his bluff “All safe!” But the waiting crowd, heedless of old animosities for the moment, took up the cheer. It served as chorus when John Carrington, catching Ned’s icy hands in his, said, hoarsely: “Thank God!”—when the lad, striving to smile his wonted brave smile, answered: “I do, dad;” when Trevanion, crying: “’E must keep movin’!” swept young Carrington along to where the Colonel stood patiently waiting, and, lifting him into the saddle, held him with one hand as he ran alongside, urging the animal into a gentle trot; when John Carrington, impatient to follow, and turning for Kipley’s shoulder to steady him, saw Mr. Wade, his face pinched with suspense and fatigue, resting rather heavily on Hastings’ arm, saw Hastings, gray-drab with fag, looking about for a vehicle of some sort.
If John Carrington’s heartstrings pulled tenaciously toward home, it was not visible in the cordial insistence with which he drove Hastings and Mr. Wade to their car.
“I count on you both for lunch tomorrow,” he called, as he left them at that haven of refuge.
Then he gripped Kipley’s arm.
“Drive like the devil!” he whispered, hoarsely.
*****
The ride had shaken the chill from young Carrington’s blood, but Trevanion refused to leave him until he saw him safely in the house.
At the door young Carrington turned and laid his hand lightly and firmly on Trevanion’s arm.
“You’re splendid, Trevanion,” he said, gently; “I shan’t forget.”
And Trevanion, turning away, would have given his heart’s blood for just that.
Mrs. Kipley bore down upon them, bustlingly energetic, a glass of whisky in one hand and a telegram in the other. Hemmy, red-eyed, lingered in the offing.
Young Carrington tossed off the whisky, tore open the envelope, and, calling to Trevanion, who was halfway down the steps, sped to him and spoke low and rapidly.
Trevanion nodded. Young Carrington, coming back, was smiling rather tremulously.
“Not a thing, thanks,” he said, to Mrs. Kipley’s offer of assistance. “All I need is a bath and a rest. In the morning I shall be quite—myself.”
He laughed an odd, gay little laugh.
“You don’t feel any bone ache?” said Mrs. Kipley, anxiously, as he went up the stairs.
Young Carrington looked down gleefully.
“I feel—relieved,” he said.
“I don’t wonder,” said Mrs. Kipley, to Hemmy, who was altering a determination to enter a convent into a desire to be a trained nurse.
But Mrs. Kipley and young Carrington were not thinking of the same predicament.
For the telegram read:
Shall arrive Yellow Dog nine to-night; your trunk with me.E. Carrington.
Shall arrive Yellow Dog nine to-night; your trunk with me.
E. Carrington.
John Carrington, his abused leg stretched out on a chair in front of him, was smoking a final cigar for the night, in the big downstairs bedroom.
He was resting one elbow on his desk; and the head that leaned upon his hand was full of plans for his son’s future. He was safe upstairs, thank God! He was snug in bed and sleeping when his father got home. And he left him to sleep off his fatigue, though he was impatient to talk with him.
The clock over the fireplace chimed the half hour after nine. There was the sound of quick steps on the veranda, then in the hall. A murmur of voices. One was Trevanion’s. “The room at the head of the hall,” he heard his undertone. Some one ran up the stairs, and some one closed the hall door gently and went down the steps.
John Carrington was out in the hall the next instant. He heard the door of Ned’s room open. He stumped up the stairs.
Light came through a half-opened door. A murmur of voices and laughing greeting came to him.
Ned, fully dressed, as though he were the newcomer, had his arms around some one who was sitting up in bed.
“Dear old girl! What a brick you are!” Carrington heard Ned say. “Trevanion told me.”
“Ned!” he cried, uncomprehendingly.
The boy swung round joyously.
“Dad!” he shouted, and there was glad greeting in his tone. “You bully old dad!”
He caught his father by the hand and shoulder with both his hands, but John Carrington held him off mechanically.
For the figure sitting up in bed, flushed, mischievous and laughing at his bewilderment, was Ned!
The hands that grasped John Carrington’s arm and shoulder gripped him, shook him slightly.
“She’s been ripping, perfectly ripping, dad, and I’m four months late, but be a little glad to see me,” this Ned’s laughing voice went on.
“She——” John Carrington stammered.
Ned waved a genial hand toward the figure in the bed.
“Miss Elenore Carrington, the most successful self-made man in history!” he announced, with a flourish.
When Miss Elenore Carrington opened her eyes the following morning, it was to gaze contentedly from her bed at a large, square, hotel-placarded object in the center of her room.
Objectively, it was merely an uncommonly good-sized trunk, but subjectively, it stood for Femininity, sweetly personal and newly reincarnated.
“But what do you suppose he put in?”murmured Miss Carrington. And uncertainty became unbearable.
She shook her fist gayly at a masculine-looking bathrobe hanging over the back of a chair. “I won’t put you on again, even tolook!” she announced, with a gayly menacing flourish.
She caught the coverings of the bed around her, and was out in a great white splash on the floor, fumbling with the key in the lock.
The trunk lid flew open, and she knelt, looking like a boyish little novice, in the plain white night garment, with the big splash of white spreading all over the floor about her.
She had that floor strewn with her treasures. Lovely frilly feminine garments, dainty slippers all buckle and heel, dear little everyday frocks and lingerie blouses, and gowns for occasions in the big trays beneath. She laughed and blessed Ned as she delved down.
And hats—actually all her hats! But alack-a-day! She clutched her shorn locks with a grimace. And that square package—toilet things; useless hairpins and unusable jeweled shell combs; and here, in tissue paper—oh, the forethought of Ned!—the very locks of hair of which she had shorn herself so recklessly, bound together by the hairdresser’s skill into a lustrous coil that had distinct possibilities.
She looked at it with an admiration such as she had never felt when it was growing on her own head.
She swathed herself in the laciest and swirliest of pale blue silk negligées, and sped to the mirror to experiment.
*****
An hour later. Miss Elenore Carrington, daintily fresh as a morning-glory, brown hair coiled closely at the back of her head and pompadoured loosely around a face worthy of its best efforts; garbed in a fetching little morning frock of white linen elaborately embroidered, and short enough to permit the eye of man to rejoice over the well-shapedchaussurewhich supported a high-arched instep in a deliciously restful way—Miss Carrington, in short, not only in her right mind but in her right clothes, stood looking out of her window at a world glowing with the glory of the September sun.
Her lips curved smilingly as she thought of many things: of her father’s surprise the night before, of the long, long talk and the flood of explanations which had lasted far into the night, and brought them into a completeness of understanding which had meant happiness to them all.
Ned had told them what those months in the East had done for him, not only in technique but in inspiration; how, returning to Paris, he found that his salon portrait had brought him a commission to paint a certain crown prince that coming winter; how Velantour, pleased as he was himself, had shouted “Déjà!”—a much prettier “déjà” than the famous one—and had added: “Now you will paint his soul in his face, his responsibilities in his clothes, and his destiny in the background.”
How, too, returning to Paris, he had found Elenore’s letters, telling him that things were going on successfully in her imposture; and how, getting her things together as hastily as possible, he had come to relieve her on the fastest greyhound afloat, determining remorsefully to give up even the crown prince if his father needed him.
Needed him! John Carrington was so proud of his talent that he would have cut off his right hand before he would have kept him.
Then they had discussed the exigencies of the present; how the thing was to be played out. Elenore insisted that no one should know; Ned that everyone should; he wanted no more credit that didn’t belong to him. John Carrington, considering it the cleverest thing that had ever happened, would have blazoned it on the stars.
They compromised: first, that the Kipleys should be told, a plan which had everything in its favor; second, that Hastings and Mr. Wade should know. This was the battleground.
Even when Elenore had yielded the question of Hastings, she objected strenuously to Mr. Wade’s enlightenment.He wouldn’t understand. But easygoing Ned turned dogged.
“If you had onlyseenhim, you’d know how appalling he’d think it,” Elenore had defended.
“When I see him to-morrow, I’ll meditate on the best way to break it to him,” Ned had retorted.
“But you’ll wait a little,” she coaxed.
“Oh, I’ll give you time to get in a bit of work,” he conceded.
Miss Elenore Carrington, looking out of the window, grew suddenly dreamy-eyed.
Over on the far hill, a branch of hard maple had turned brilliantly scarlet. But it could hardly have been its reflection that brought the delicate stain into Miss Carrington’s cheeks. Oddly enough, it was on that particular hill that Hastings had planned to build his bungalow.
*****
It was a morning of merriment, of buoyancy, of stupefactions.
Mr. Kipley was fairly swamped by the last emotion. He sat on the steps of the side porch, and only a medical expert could have told that his condition was not merely comatose.
All that saved Mrs. Kipley was the urgency of preparing a suitable lunch for “those New York folks.”
Even then she discovered herself doing the most remarkable things. “I’ll bake the ice cream next,” she remarked to Hemmy. Hemmy, used to the startling changes of romance, adjusted herself to the situation with apparent ease—and a new dream of bliss.
For had not Mr. Ned said, jubilantly: “Jove, this air is pure ozone! I want to paint everything in sight. You, too, Hemmy, in that pink-checked gown.”
Painters fell in love with their models sometimes.
*****
John Carrington fairly basked in happiness. Only one thing troubled him, and when he caught Elenore alone for a moment that came out. He took her hands in his and looked into her blue eyes lovingly.
“I told you once,” he said, gently, “that no daughter could be so dear to a man as his son.”
“Yes, dad,” she said, frankly.
He bent and kissed her forehead.
“I was wrong,” he said.
Then they spoke of other things.
*****
“How is young Mr. Carrington this morning?” said Mr. Wade, stepping into the trap, to Mr. Kipley, driving. “None the worse for yesterday, I hope?”
Mr. Kipley’s face contorted, as though he were about to sneeze.
“He’s lookin’ about the same,” he replied, and his voice sounded muffled. He seemed to derive such inward satisfaction from the phrase that he repeated it: “He’s lookin’ about the same. I don’t think it hurt him none.” And immediately gave his attention to his horses.
John Carrington was on the veranda to receive them.
“This is a gala day,” he told them, as he grasped their hands in warm welcome. “My other child came home last night.”
Hastings’ heart leaped.
“Your daughter?” said Mr. Wade, politely. And with his words Elenore came forward to meet them.
She had doffed the linen gown of the morning for the delicately elaborate one she had last worn at that farewell tea in Paris.
There was the faintest suggestion of shyness in the gracefully smiling welcome she gave Mr. Wade, which suited that particular old gentleman to a T.
“You have every reason to be proud of both your children,” he said, affably, to John Carrington.
“I am,” John Carrington replied, and he meant it.
Hastings, wordlessly happy to feel Elenore’s hand resting lightly in his, pressed it tenderly as he tried to look into the eyes he had so longed to see.
Her long lashes veiled them distractingly.
Then she raised them to his with a certain laughing mockery which was delicious but baffling.
“Have I changed much?” she demanded, lightly.
“I shall have to look a long time to find out,” said Hastings. His voice shook a little.
She laughed with sweet spontaneity.
“I shall not waste myself on anyone with such a disgracefully bad memory,” she said, with mock reproach. “I shall devote myself to your uncle.”
She turned to Mr. Wade and proceeded to make her word good.
Mr. Wade found himself sitting on a broad, shady veranda, talking to as pretty a girl as he had seen in years; talking, as he felt with a commendable thrill of pride, his very best. What a listener she was! How graceful! How super-feminine! How ready-witted!
She agreed with him, and Mr. Wade felt even more agreeably conscious than usual of his own good judgment. She disagreed daintily. It was exhilarating to show her where she was wrong.
“If I were twenty years younger!” said Mr. Wade to himself, which was a little more than half the number he should have stated, but what elderly gentleman is exactly accurate in such statements!
He looked sharply at Hastings, and something in the divided attention his nephew was giving John Carrington seemed to please him.
There was a flutter of Hemmy’s apron in the doorway.
“Ned will join us in the dining room,” said John Carrington, genially.
Ned was, in fact, standing on its threshold.
He greeted them with gay good fellowship.
“I’m glad to see you looking so well after yesterday,” Mr. Wade assured him.
Ned flashed a frank, bright smile at him.
“I’m as fresh as though yesterday had never happened,” he said, gayly, “and we’re going to keep conversation on pleasanter things through luncheon, on Elenore’s account.”
Mr. Wade nodded. “Of course,” he said, “we must not alarm the young lady with what might have been.”
And the chatter that ensued was, in truth, gay and bright and full of reminiscences of the life the three young people had enjoyed in Paris.
If Mr. Wade had ever tasted better fried chicken, he had forgotten where, and he praised it with an emphasis that turned Mrs. Kipley, who was helping Hemmy wait on table, a deep magenta with suppressed pride.
He approved highly, too, of the champagne cup, and when Elenore confessed its concoction, declared gallantly that that explained its excellence.
“Indeed, I imagine that you succeed in whatever you do,” he added, as the string to his floral bouquet.
They were at the coffee-and-cordial stage of proceedings now, and Mrs. Kipley and Hemmy had disappeared on their laurels.
“She does, Mr. Wade,” said Ned, gayly, “and she attempts appallingly difficult things at that. Would you like to hear about her star performance?”
“I would, indeed,” said Mr. Wade, heartily.
And Elenore, with a look at her brother, knew that the moment had come.
“Then I shall leave you to your cigars,” she said, lightly, pushing back her chair, in the instinct to escape.
For back of the lightness, excitement, altogether too insecurely barred, was making a dash for liberty.
But Ned was on his feet as well, and caught her firmly but lightly around the waist as she tried to pass him.
“You’ll have to stay and help me out,” he said, with mock reproach. “How do you expect a man who only arrived last night to tell it straight?”
Even then they thought he must have mis-spoken himself.
But Elenore turned with her hand on his shoulder and faced them buoyantly.
“There was once a Rising Genius, who had one great, glorious opportunity,” she began. “He had, too, a sister whom the gods hadn’t dowered with talent of any kind; and a father——”
“Who not only fractured his leg,” John Carrington broke in, “but got fractious in other ways as well. And,not knowing of the opportunity, insisted on his son’s coming home.”
“So the sister, who was perfectly bully, and the pluckiest girl——” Ned began.
But Elenore interposed.
“He was perfectly willing to come,” she insisted to them. “Don’t forget that.” She slipped from his arm and swept them the daintiest of courtesies.
She touched the elaborate chiffon quillings of her skirt with daintily approving fingers. “I never knew the sustaining and soothing influence of feminine attire until I was bereft of it,” she assured them, laughingly. “I shall be distractingly fond of frills all the rest of my life. Wasn’t it horrid underground!” she flashed; and they heard the swish of her retreating skirts.
Hastings gripped Ned suddenly by the arm.
“You weren’t down the mine with me yesterday?” he demanded.
“Pullman, Lower 8, from Chicago,” said that young gentleman, serenely.
“Then Ishallbe your brother-in-law,” he ejaculated, and vanished like a shot.
Mr. Wade’s expression approached imbecility.
“Do you mean to tell me——” he began, numbly.
“That I only came last night, but my sister has been here all summer,” said Ned, concisely.
*****
The air came in refreshingly through the opened windows. Elenore was standing, one arm on the back of a chair. She smiled slightly as Hastings came toward her impetuously.
“It was quite a composite speech, wasn’t it?” she said.
He covered the hand on the back of the chair with his own.
“I can’t realize it,” he said. “You—all that time.”
“It seemed quite a long time, too,” she confessed.
“You underground!” he went on. “I should have died of anxiety if I had suspected it.”
“I wanted to tell you dreadfully,” she murmured. “There’s no harm in owning now that I was afraid.”
The hand that held hers closed over it more tightly.
“There’s no harm now,” he said, tensely, “in telling me if you meant what you said: that you thought Elenore cared for me.”
“There’s no particular harm now,” she parodied, daringly, with downcast eyes, “in your telling Elenore now what you told her then.”
He swept her into his arms with a tender forcefulness. “That I love her. Elenore! Elenore!”
The full red lips that his own found, breathlessly, were mysteriously, maddeningly sweet. And those deep blue eyes—what marvelous things they confessed to him!
“The dear little bungalow!” he whispered. “But we needn’t wait for it, Elenore. Marry me soon, and we’ll build it afterward.”
She laughed deliciously.
The sound of steps in the hall came to them, and Hastings drew her to the vantage ground of a corner as Mr. Wade and the Carringtons,père et fils, came in view outside the windows to seat themselves comfortably in the big veranda chairs.
“And,” said Mr. Wade, in high good humor, and evidently continuing a conversation begun at the table, “it shouldn’t be difficult for you and your son-in-law to arrange the management of the two mines amicably between you.”
“Aren’t you getting on rather rapidly?” John Carrington demanded, with a twinkle in his eye.
“Not as rapidly as Laurence would like to, I’ll wager,” Mr. Wade said, with confidence.
Then he polished his eyeglasses with his handkerchief. “I have always had a great admiration for the heroines of Shakespeare—Rosalind, in particular,” he said, with a hint of pedantic precision; “but I consider Miss Elenore more charming still.”
“My idea, exactly,” murmured Hastings.
“As long as you’ve settled it all forthem, you two,” said Ned, with confidential raillery, “perhaps you’d better hurry up the great event, so it can take place before I go back to Paris. Everything has to be sacrificed to my career, you know.”
He spoke with light mockery.
Hastings’ arm tightened around Elenore, and his pleading lost none of its force because it was silent.
The head on his shoulder gave a sudden gay, bewitching little nod.
“We consent to sacrifice ourselves,” Hastings called, jubilantly.
And the sound of applause drifted in through the open windows.
IN her castle by the seaDwelt the daughter of the king;Sweet and beautiful was sheAs a morn in Spring.Lovers had she, young and old,Princes foolish, princes wise,Lured by all the love untoldIn her tender eyes.By her window in the towerOnce she sat and listened long—Fairer she than any flowerThat inspires a song!Far below her, in his boat,Sang the poet, and her nameSoaring in a silver noteThrough the window came.Just a simple lyric, yetFashioned with such perfect artNevermore could she forgetHow it thrilled her heart.She will never wed a prince,Though the king’s own choice he were;Life holds something dearer sinceLove’s self sang to her.Frank Dempster Sherman.
IN her castle by the seaDwelt the daughter of the king;Sweet and beautiful was sheAs a morn in Spring.Lovers had she, young and old,Princes foolish, princes wise,Lured by all the love untoldIn her tender eyes.By her window in the towerOnce she sat and listened long—Fairer she than any flowerThat inspires a song!Far below her, in his boat,Sang the poet, and her nameSoaring in a silver noteThrough the window came.Just a simple lyric, yetFashioned with such perfect artNevermore could she forgetHow it thrilled her heart.She will never wed a prince,Though the king’s own choice he were;Life holds something dearer sinceLove’s self sang to her.Frank Dempster Sherman.
IN her castle by the seaDwelt the daughter of the king;Sweet and beautiful was sheAs a morn in Spring.
Lovers had she, young and old,Princes foolish, princes wise,Lured by all the love untoldIn her tender eyes.
By her window in the towerOnce she sat and listened long—Fairer she than any flowerThat inspires a song!
Far below her, in his boat,Sang the poet, and her nameSoaring in a silver noteThrough the window came.
Just a simple lyric, yetFashioned with such perfect artNevermore could she forgetHow it thrilled her heart.
She will never wed a prince,Though the king’s own choice he were;Life holds something dearer sinceLove’s self sang to her.
Frank Dempster Sherman.
Mrs. Massingbyrd Interferes, by Mary H. Vorse
W
WHAT makes the boom go sheering up in the air in that silly way?” Mrs. Massingbyrd asked me.
“It’s trying to gooseneck,” I told her. “And if you would like me to take the tiller——” Now, how foolish this suggestion was, I ought to have known.
“Not at all,” Mrs. Massingbyrd briskly cut me short, pulling the tiller smartly toward her to emphasize her refusal.
The boat jibed, and the next thing we were both in the water. Mrs. Massingbyrd’s shining head came to the surface a few feet from mine. She shook the water from her eyes, gasped for breath once or twice, and then with a magnificent affectation of composure:
“Something told me I ought to wear my bathing suit,” she remarked, reflectively.
“It was vanity told you,” I replied with irritation. Nothing had told me I ought to wear mine. It was just like Lydia Massingbyrd to wear a bathing suit to get capsized in. I’ve never known a woman who so infallibly landed on her feet.
“I think,” she continued, complacently, as we struck out for the shore, not far distant, “I chose a very nice place for spilling us. I know women who would have been capable of doing it in the middle of Long Island Sound!”
“It would have been still more considerate if you’d chosen a spot near the mainland to show your seamanship,” I suggested, with polite sarcasm.
“I thought that all wrecks always took place near Huckleberry Island. I thought that was one of the things onedid.” Her voice was a trifle aggrieved, she smiled at me, a smile like a little flickering flame.
“She needn’t,” I thought, “try to put the comether on me.” Suspenders are in the way when swimming, and my heavy, rubber-soled shoes helped to spoil my temper.
“Of course,” I gloomily returned, “our lunch is now at the bottom of the Sound.” I knew that would fetch her. I have never seen a woman who has so retained a child’s unimpaired appetite. Mrs. Massingbyrd turned an uneasy eye on the catboat, which, buoyed by its sail, was floating on its side like some great, awkward, wounded bird.
Mrs. Massingbyrd’s feet struck the sandy beach off Huckleberry Island.
“But we can’t sit here all day, you know, on a desert island, with nothing to eat,” she remonstrated, as she made her way to the shore. “You must do something about it, Bobby. I call it tragic, simply tragic, to think of all that good lunch put out of our reach.”
She was by now quite on dry land, and with great expedition pulled the shell pins from her lovely and extraordinary hair.
The jealous say that Mrs. Massingbyrd’s strength, like Samson’s, rests in her hair. It is that meek, silvery gold color that usually has neither kink nor curl, but in her case it curled riotously, broke out at the nape of her neck in absurd babyish ringlets and at her temples.
“So that was why you upset us?” I asked, irritably. “I would have taken your word for it that it did.”
“Did what?” she queried, rising promptly to the bait.
“Come down to your knees, I mean.”
“You might know that not for anything in the world, with hair as thick and as hard to dry as mine, would I wet it unnecessarily!” she flashed.
“It’s a mercy it’s so fine,” I quoth, maliciously, “or you would never get it up at all.” Mrs. Massingbyrd is notoriously vain of her wonderful hair.
“You might have spared yourself all the trouble,” I continued, cuttingly, as I took off my collar, and began on my shoes. “It’s not nearly as nice a color all soaked and wet; in fact, it’s rather unpleasant and seaweedy!”
“Wait until it’s dry,” she triumphed, radiantly. “You may in the end be glad you came. ButIwon’t!” she continued. “There’s nothing in it for me!You’renot going to present a sight for sore eyes now or at any other portion of the day! And there’s nothing to eat!”
“You’re a vain and greedy woman, Lydia Massingbyrd,” I said, severely. “And it would serve you right if the lockers of Mason’s boat were empty instead of being garnished with cans of soup and meat, as I suspect them to be.” And I started forth to rescue the capsized boat, but the tide had carried it on the reef, the mast caught between two rocks, and, already strained as it was, it cracked and broke.
And I was due to meet my wife and some other friends off Rye in a couple of hours. That’s what comes of going off on a lady’s sailing party, each man to be sailed down by a girl. A foolish idea, and hatched out, you may be sure, in the crazy pates of Felicia and her friend, Lydia Massingbyrd.
I did what I could for the poor boat. It’s a light little thing, an eighteen-foot cat, and, as I’ve often told Mason, heavily oversparred. I got her on the beach without much trouble, while my companion inquired anxiously, from time to time, as to the state of the larder.
I found I was right. There was soup, and shortly I was warming it by means of a wire cleverly slung around it and a wooden handle. For, luckily, my match case was watertight.
“Necessity is the mother of invention,” said I, taking my companion into favor again.
“Necessity is the mother of indigestion!” she retorted, and I saw her mind was back with our shipwrecked flesh-pots. “I can’t bear canned things!”
She spread her long, wet hair around her like a mantle; the corners of her mouth drooped with a pathetic quiver, changed their mind and flickered out into a radiant little smile, which in its turn gave way to a long chuckle.
“I never quite understood about jibing,” she remarked. “But now I understand perfectly. It’s about the suddenest thing I know. I’ve a very objective mind. A thing has to be put before me actually, in the flesh, for me to comprehend it. That’s what I shall tell the reporters.”
“Reporters?” I wondered.
“Reporters, of course,” she repeated. “And the longer we’re out here, the more there’ll be! They won’t begin to hunt for us until to-night. It’s a good thing Felicia is my lifelong friend;” and Mrs. Massingbyrd laughed again. The situation had none of the serious aspects to her that it had to me. Of course Felicia was Lydia Massingbyrd’s friend, but no woman cares to have her husband absent and missing with another woman, and what with the anxiety and reporters and all—no, I didn’t look forward to the next two or three days.
Mrs. Massingbyrd’s spirits rose during lunch.
“After a swim canned things aren’t really so awful,” she conceded. “I suppose they’ll tell the police and get out searchlights. I’ve had most things happen to me, but this is quite brand new.”
“One would think you were a popular actress,” I complained.
“Well, so, in a way, I am,” she philosophized.
Her hair was drying fast, and hung about her a dress of living gold. Herblack silk bathing suit fitted her closely in all the places it ought not to. I marveled that so slender a little creature could be at the same time so deliciously rounded. Her face, ever so slightly tanned, had all sorts of delicious golden tones, her eyes were surprisingly blue and as candidly innocent as those of a delightful child. In her short skirt and her golden hair, so meek in its color, so wayward in its curls, she looked like a little girl.
“Lydia Massingbyrd,” I found myself saying spontaneously, “I forgive you everything! And it’s a lucky thing for me I’m deeply in love with Felicia.”
“I told you you’d be glad you came,” she said, joyously.
“It was worth the price,” I generously conceded. “Your lovely mane is all you have pretended it was. ‘It’s all wool’!”
“A sail!” cried Mrs. Massingbyrd, pointing to a yawl that even as she spoke had rounded the island.
“It’s the Phillips’ yawl,” I agreed.
“Conscientiously, I don’t suppose we can stay shipwrecked any longer than we can help. We’ll have to give up the reporters!” There was a note of disappointment in her voice. “Shout, Bobby!”
I shouted.
“They don’t hear us. What we need is a flag of distress. Wave, wave your coat!” Then catching her long hair in both her hands, she held it far above her head and waved it like a golden banner. The wind caught it and played with it; in her eager abandon she looked like some Mænad, some fire spirit—choose your own simile for her, but in that moment out there in the full sunlight she had I know not what touch of the superterrestrial.
I believe at that moment it was given to me to see her at the highest point of her somewhat amazing beauty. As she stood there her hand was holding her wonderful hair above her head; she was for a moment outside the pale of everyday womanhood. She was, I tell you, something to commit follies for.
They saw us. The boat put about. Mrs. Massingbyrd let fall the most original and the most beautiful flag that ever waved distress.
“They’ve recognized me,” she remarked with satisfaction. She held a strand of hair high above her head and let it fall. “There isn’t anyone who could have done that.”
“Or who would have done it if they could,” I added, severely.
“Or who would have done it if they could,” she agreed. “Not all women are so conscientious as to what they owe mankind.”
“Indeed they are not,” I put in, sarcastically.
She was on her knees, gathering her hairpins and combs.
“Let your light so shine before men,” said she, cheerfully. “A city that’s built on a hill cannot be hid. Don’t put your candle under a bushel.”
I was putting on my shoes—now fairly well dried—and my ruined collar, just to show I had one.
“I suppose you’re the vainest woman on the seacoast,” I scolded. I am the only man in all Lydia Massingbyrd’s acquaintance who never flatters her, and who from time to time gives her the great benefit of hearing the whole truth about herself.
“I suppose I am, and good reason, too;” and there was some heat in her voice. Her back was toward me; all I could see of her was a mass of silvery gold.
“Now, what shall I do?” she asked. “There’s plenty of time to put up my hair any which way—it would look horrid—I look so nice like this—now, what would you do?”
“You ought to put it up,” I conclusively told her. “It’s an indecent exposure. One would think, to look at you, that you were playing tableaux of Lady Godiva.”
“I shall never get such another chance,” she implored.
“Put up your hair, Lydia Massingbyrd,” I commanded.
“I’ve always wanted to do this,” she moaned. “And now just as there’s going to be any good in it you bully me.” Her mouth dropped again, she looked at me with appealingly candid eyes.
“Oh, have it your way,” I growled. “Show off before Phillips, and Almington, and little Cecilia Bennett, and Mrs. Day, and the Drake boys!”
“Almington!” exclaimed Mrs. Massingbyrd. “That settles it!” and she resolutely shook out her hair again.
“Almington!” I exclaimed, in amazement. “Why does Almington settle it?”
“I can’t bear the man!” cried she, stamping her foot.
“Oh, well, if this is by way of punishment——”
“Cecilia Bennett’s sister is one of my dearest friends.” Apparently she thought this was an explanation.
“And so you want Cecilia to see you with your hair down,” I sneered.
“Men aretoodense!” was all she vouchsafed me. “He’s a popinjay of a professional heart-breaker.”
“I suppose you’ll know what they’ll say about you?” I tried another tack.
“I know what they’ll think,” she told me, with her inimitable calm.
“If you have the nerve, it’s no business of mine,” I conceded.
“Felicia’ll be so busy scolding me that she’ll forget all about you,” she suggested, naïvely.
“There’s something in that,” I was manly enough to confess.
The boat now lay-to in the shallow water. Phillips hailed us.
“You’ll have to put your hair up,” I told her. “They’ve got no dinghy. We’ll have to swim for it.”
“And wet myself all over again? No, indeed; you’ll have to carry me,” she calmly announced. “They can come inshore as far as that.”
“You’ll have to square me with Felicia,” I muttered.
Laughingly Lydia Massingbyrd made a rope of her hair, to keep it safe from the water, that she might the better blind the poor wretches in the boat with its radiance. So carry her I did. As we were well out in the water I heard the snap of Almington’s camera.
“Won’t Felicia be in a wax?” the incorrigible woman giggled in my ear.
“It’s lucky for you it’s me,” I said to her, critically. “Even as it is, it’s most imprudent!”
She looked at me, an impudent gleam in her eye.
“I’m mighty careful in choosing my company when I’m cast away on a desert island,” said she.
“I don’t understand women at all,” I rather rashly confessed to Felicia.
“That’s all the better for us—I mean for me,” she threw back at me.
“But I do understand you’re all a matchmaking lot,” I continued, severely.
“Oh, we’re a matchmaking lot, are we?” Felicia’s tone was one of flattering interest. She was arranging a bit of vine that had somehow gotten torn down. She now turned toward me, the picture of innocent surprise.
“You like matchmaking for the fun of the thing—just as a man likes shooting,” I went on. “You’d marry any person to any other person, regardless of age, position or——”
“Sex?” suggested Felicia, politely.
“Suitability,” I amended; “just for the sake of having a wedding.”
“You’re talking now in the manner and tone of a husband,” Felicia accusingly told me. “Anyone who heard your voice afar off would know you were one.” I paid no attention to Felicia’s interruption.
“If I’m not right, kindly tell me if Lydia Massingbyrd wasn’t matchmaking when she got you to ask Almington and little Cecilia Bennett down here; and if you weren’t matchmaking when you consented to ask them.”
“Undoubtedly it’s because Lydia is anxious to arrange a marriage between them she wanted them here.” Felicia’s tone was so guilelessly axiomatic that it made me uncomfortable.
“Has she told you?”
“She’s told me nothing,” Felicia assured me. “If she’d told me her reasons I couldn’t, as she very well knows, have asked them.”
“And that’s why I say,” I concluded, “that I don’t understand women. FirstLydia Massingbyrd told me she couldn’t bear Almington. Then she did her little Venus-rising-from-the-sea act for his benefit. And then, I tell you, Felicia, if ever a mortal woman flirted, it was your little golden-locked friend. And, Jove, she was pretty!”
“What Lydia Massingbyrd needs is a husband,” Felicia declared, “who would keep her from tampering with other people’s! You’ve been utterly ruined ever since you went around that day carrying Lydia all over the place. You talk about her hair in your sleep.”
Again I ignored Felicia and her unjust accusations. “Poor little Cecilia Bennett! Between admiration and fear she was almost frightened to death.”
“Cecilia is a nice, upstanding, decent little girl,” Felicia asserted, aggressively.
“So she is, so she is,” I hastened to agree. “And that is why—she being only two months out of Farmington—you want to marry her to a man like Almington!”
“What’s wrong with Almington?” asked Felicia, still in her most guileless manner, which I have learned to know is the most finished form of impertinence.
“What’s the matter with Almington?” I exclaimed. “Oh, nothing at all! He’s the stuff perfect husbands are made of. He’s ripe, is Almington, for a little, innocent flower of a girl like Cecilia.”
“Almington’s lots of money,” said Felicia, reflectively; “and Cecilia’s mother’s keen for it. You know there’s no end to the Bennett girls, and they’re poor as anything.”
I maintained a disgusted silence, for I had an inkling that Felicia would have been charmed with an outbreak from me about the iniquity of sacrificing young girls on the altar of Mammon. I therefore resolved to commit myself no further.
It was at this moment that Mrs. Massingbyrd arrived.
The two ladies embraced. Then Felicia held her friend at arms’ length.
“Remember,” she warned, “no Croquemitaine! I’ve done two things for you—what you wanted me to—and I’ve asked no questions. So go ahead, but no Lady Godiva here under my roof-tree. No, nor any coming out shrieking burglars at two with your hair down, Lydia Massingbyrd!” And Felicia gave her friend an affectionate shake.
I had the sense that there had passed between the two women intelligences far beyond what appeared on the surface; a feeling that there were in the air all kinds of things—and that these things had passed over my head. In fact, I felt hopelessly at a disadvantage, as a man so often does in the presence of his wife and his wife’s intimate friend; in a word, I suppose I felt like a husband, and I was glad enough to join young Drake, who had come up in the same train with little Cecilia Bennett.
As we strolled offtogether—
“There’s something awfully nice about a really fresh young girl, when one’s been knocking around with older women a bit,” he confided to me.
“There’s nothing as charming as an unspoiled girl,” I agreed. “And Cecilia is that.”
“I don’t know but the French way is the best. I hate a young girl who’s too darned knowing.”
Now, I knew that Ellery Drake had made calf love to Felicia when Felicia herself had been a young girl of the kind he so eloquently described as “too darned knowing”; and that he had in vain followed the fascinating wake of Mrs. Massingbyrd. So it was not without malice I replied:
“Oh, the less a little, young girl knows the better; give me atabula raraany time.”
Ellery Drake looked at me sharply. “I shouldn’t go as far as that,” he said. “But I like them like Cecilia—so awfully interested in things you know, and a little bit shy, and all that. Gee! Did you see her stare when you toted Mrs. Massingbyrd into the boat the other day?”
“No wonder,” I said. “You don’t see things like that every day.”
“She’s a wonder, Mrs. Massingbyrd”—Drake was full of enthusiasm—“but almosttoospectacular for a quiet man.I think Cecilia was really a little shocked.”
I had noted poor little Cecilia’s what-have-we-here-and-whatever-is-the-world-coming-to expression.
There’s nothing quite as conventional as your properly-brought-up young person; and Cecilia was as perfectly turned out a specimen as a wise mother and a good school could accomplish. She was, in fact, the beau ideal of the young person for whom we keep our magazines spotlessly pure, and in whose behalf we cry aloud when a play is not better than it should be.
“She said afterward,” Drake told me, “that she felt as if she’d been reading one of those society papers that haven’t the best reputation in the world.”
“I didn’t know she was up to that,” I remarked.
“Oh, you don’t know Cecilia. She’s really very funny when you get her alone,” Drake protested. “I’ve known her ever since I was knee-high, so, you see, she’s not a bit shy with me. When she was a little kid, I’d no idea she’d turn out so pretty. The trouble is, they get spoiled so soon,” Drake gloomily went on—“spoiled and knowing and worldly.”
“You can’t expect a flower to keep in bud forever.”
“But you can train it to be a nice, sweet, modest, homekeeping plant, or an exotic thing trained for the flower show.”
He puffed at his cigarette. I saw he thought he’d gotten off a good thing. When I’m with Drake I understand only too well the kind of amusement I so frequently afford Felicia. He enhanced the resemblance by now saying:
“I don’t understand women at all!”
“No?” I encouraged him.
“What the devil is a sweet little thing like Cecilia Bennett doing messing around with a fellow like Almington?”
“He’ll soon take off the bloom,” I said.
If the women were going to match-make, it occurred to me I could do a little work of the kind off my own bat, and I was pleased with my dexterity when Drake enthusiastically snatched at the bait.
“You bet he will,” he said. “He’s not the man for a young girl like Cecilia; nothing more than a baby, you know, who doesn’t know how to take care of herself. Though I’ve nothing against Almington. He’s all right for married women.”
“A perfect companion for Felicia and Mrs. Massingbyrd,” I sarcastically threw in, but my sarcasm didn’t touch Ellery Drake, for he said, simply:
“Oh, he’s all right forthem!”
“So,” I said, magnanimously, “let them take care of him. He’s coming down to-night, and you keep Cecilia out of his clutches.”
Roars of mirth, in which I distinguished the voices of my wife, Mrs. Massingbyrd and Cecilia, now interrupted us, and they all came running across the lawn like a troop of charming, grown-up children.
Indeed, Felicia and Mrs. Massingbyrd seemed younger than their little companion. I’ve told you that Lydia Massingbyrd has the youngest, most candid eyes I’ve ever seen; and she and Felicia ran down the lawn with the abandon of those who know their world.
Spontaneity is one of civilization’s most perfect flowers, and Cecilia wasn’t as yet civilized enough to have acquired it. She followed the others with a certain dry rigidity that I found perfectly charming for her age and the time she had been in the world.
“No, no; you can’t come,” said Mrs. Massingbyrd, waving us back. “You’ll know soon enough. Don’t tell, Cecilia;” and she caught the child by the arm and carried her along, as they made for the stable.
There was something preposterous in the air. I have known Felicia long enough to recognize a certain irresponsible little laugh as a danger signal. Presently the children came back, Mrs. Massingbyrd with Cecilia still tucked under her wing.
“Yes, it’s the strangest thing,” she was chattering, “the impression I produce on strangers! First they alwayscall meMissMassingbyrd, then, later, they always ask where Massingbyrd is! Not one person in a thousand will believe I’m a real, bona-fide, dyed-in-the-wool widow!”
Cecilia’s eyes were open wide. I could see in her attitude that she didn’t think it good taste to joke about being taken for a divorcée. Nor did I, and I wondered what my friend was up to, for generally Mrs. Massingbyrd adapts herself to her company with all the flexibility in the world.
I followed them into the house, and I was in time to see as pretty a little tableau as ever was presented on the stage.
Discovered on the piazza was Almington, and at sight of him my littleingénue, Cecilia, hesitated, and was lost in a sea of blushes.
Mrs. Massingbyrd ran forward and greeted him gayly and gladly. Mamma’s training came to Cecilia’s aid; she gathered herself together and, in spite of burning cheeks and very bright eyes, advanced to meet Almington in good order.
He greeted her pleasantly but indifferently, and turned eagerly to Mrs. Massingbyrd.
“You’re none the worse for your shipwreck, I hope,” he asked.
“I never had a pleasanter day,” Mrs. Massingbyrd assured him. “It’s not often I get a chance to display my only beauty free and unrebuked.”
“Your pictures came out well,” said Almington. “I couldn’t wait for the film to be through. I had it developed at once;” and he felt in his pocket.
Mrs. Massingbyrd held out her rosy palm, then drew it back.
“No, not here,” she decided. “Come down to the rose garden and show them to me there. After all, they’re just for you and me.” And it was with a self-satisfied air, the air of a conqueror, that Almington unfolded his long legs and followed Mrs. Massingbyrd.
I looked at my companions. Cecilia’s cheeks were still hot. I saw she was a little bewildered, but she acted like a little thoroughbred, and made pretty, perfunctory, young-girl talk with Felicia, whose face told me nothing; and with Drake, who looked profoundly pleased.
Mrs. Massingbyrd and her cavalier were strolling up and down in the rose garden at the foot of the terrace. Coquetry was in every movement of her little blond head. Conquest was written large on Almington.
In pursuance of my own little policy, “There goes a lost man,” I remarked.
“He’s been lost so often and won so often that it doesn’t matter much, does it?” said Felicia, lightly. “So if it’s only he that’s lost, we won’t have far to look for him.”
“I thought Mrs. Mass. had turned him down,” remarked Ellery Drake.
“It hasn’t apparently prevented his turning up again,” Felicia replied, pertly.
I looked at Cecilia. Mamma’s training held good; there was a visible strain about her attitude, but she did her best to seem natural. It was Cecilia’s first time under fire, and she did her superior officers credit. But there was that about the still babyish lines of her mouth which showed me that she longed to be away by herself and have a good cry. Drake couldn’t stand it any longer.
“Come on, Cecilia, let us go for a walk, too,” he suggested. And while I blessed him for his kindness I thought the “too” unfortunate.
When they were out of earshot I turned severely to Felicia.
“I don’t consider the Torture of the Innocents a pretty game,” I told her.
“Tell that to Lydia,” was all I got out of my wife.
“I thought Cecilia’s sister was a great friend of Lydia’s,” I asked.
“Exactly,” Felicia assented, dryly.