"I’ll have to get dressed first."
"No, you won’t. Put on my slippers and run down as you are. There’s not a soul in the house but Polly and you and me and the servants, and they’re all women. It’s just at the foot of the stairs."
So Angelica, shamefaced in her kimono and with her hanging hair, went softly down the stairs. The halls were brightly lighted, but there was no one about, and not a sound. She went into the library, which she remembered having passed. It was fascinating to her at this hour—silent and warm, with little glowing lamps in the corners and rows and rows of orderly books.
On the long table in the center of the room lay the package she had been told of. The paper was opened, and showed five or six fresh, brightly bound books. Angelica inspected them with profound attention, for with all her heart she desired to make an intelligent choice. At last she picked out three, and was about to go up-stairs with them, when a voice addressed her—a man’s voice.
"Are they for Mrs. Russell?" it said.
She started violently, dismayed at being seen by masculine eyes in such a costume. He was standing in the doorway; evidently he had just come in, for he carried his hat and stick. He wore a dinner-jacket, and it was the first time Angelica had ever been spoken to by a man in a dinner-jacket.
"Yes," she answered.
"All those books are good," he said. "I know she’ll like them all. I picked them out for her."
She gave him a quick and stealthy look, and her heart beat faster. He might, she thought, very well be the hero for whom she was waiting. He was a tall, blond fellow with a little fair mustache, very boyish-looking, very serious,not exactly handsome, but unquestionably possessed of a certain distinction. She looked at him again, but this time she met his eyes squarely, his shrewd gray eyes, and she saw quite plainly that he was displeased, that he didn’t like to see girls in kimonos in that library.
"Who are you?" he asked Angelica. "A new maid?"
"No!" she replied indignantly. "Not a maid. I’m her—I don’t know what her name is—her companion."
He raised his eyebrows.
"I’ll take up the books," he said. "I want to speak to Mrs. Russell. You needn’t trouble. Good night!"
He waved her out of the room ahead of him. She hurried, anxious to get out of his sight, and went into her own room. Looking back, she saw that he had left the door of Mrs. Russell’s room open, and she approached, to listen, for she felt quite sure that the conversation would relate to herself.
The young man had flung the books on the table, and was talking angrily.
"Then what did you do it for? You’ve no business to bring a girl like that into the house!"
"She’s respectable," said Mrs. Russell.
"You don’t know. She doesn’t look it. Anyway, even if she is, she’s no more fit to be a companion than—I don’t know what. It’s an insult to Polly!"
"No, it isn’t. She’s a nice, cheerful girl, and she can be very useful. She sews——”
"If you want her for a maid, call her a maid, and put her in a maid’s room. Why did you put her there, at the end of the hall? One of the best rooms!"
"To be near me."
"Near you? You said she was for Polly."
"That’s no reason why she shouldn’t help me now and then when I——”
"Now, look here!" interrupted the young man. "This is final. Either she goes to-morrow, or you’ll put her inher proper place. I won’t have her running around the house half-dressed. If she’s a maid, treat her as a maid. If you want a companion, get one—a real one. What does Polly say?"
"Polly hasn’t seen her yet. I engaged her. I went all the way into the city to see her mother and find out about her. You know, Eddie, I’m paying her out of my own pocket, because I feel that Polly shouldn’t be left alone."
"You ought to know better than to pick out a girl like this one!" he cried. "I’m disgusted. You’re so anxious to get rid of the trouble of looking after Polly that you’d pick up any one, out of the street—any one cheap!"
He was very angry; his fair face flushed; he twisted his little mustache with a trembling hand.
"I’d like to see her——” he began again.
Angelica waited to hear no more. She rushed back to her own room and began to dress with frantic haste.
"Well!" she said to herself. "It’s all up, now! I never thought it would last, anyway."
At length she was dressed, shabby and dusty enough in her street clothes, but feeling far better prepared for an encounter with the blond young man.
"All right!" she said. "All right! Let him fire me! I don’t care. I never pretended to be any different from what I am, anyway."
She was defiant, but she wasn’t resentful, any more than she would have been if the boss of a factory had reproved her. She had grown up in the consciousness that there were in the world people who had a right to get angry and to reprove—teachers, policemen, bosses, rich people.
There was a knock at the door, and a voice informed her sharply that Mrs. Russell was waiting for her. To her surprise and relief she found Mrs. Russell alone, and yawning.
"I suppose we’ll have to go to bed now," she said. "It’s after twelve; so I’ll say good night to you."
"Good night," Angelica answered.
She supposed that she was to be allowed to leave the room; but she had quite half an hour’s work still to do. She had to brush and braid Mrs. Russell’s short, curly hair; she had to go down-stairs again and fetch a bottle of spring water from the ice-chest; she had to put away dozens of things, and then to set out on the table lip-salve, cold cream, and some sort of medicine; and then to pull up the blinds, put out the light, and grope her way out in the dark.
She was in the habit of going to bed very much earlier; yet, once more in her own room, she didn’t feel at all sleepy. She lay stretched out on the bed, with her hands clasped under her head, meditating about Mrs. Russell, who was altogether outside her experience, and the blond young man with the little mustache. She wondered who he was.
"Her son, I guess," she reflected. "Anyway, he’s pretty cross to her. I wouldn’t put up with it, if I was her. One of these rich young fellers, he is, and as spoiled as can be!"
Then she didn’t think about him any more; he was no longer the possible hero of her romance. He was so obviously not for her. Her beauty, her impudence, would never impress him. Her mind dwelt for an instant with a sort of shadowy regret upon his nice young face; then the current of her thought changed, and ran back into the channel it had made for itself—that of speculating upon her own future.
"My first night in this house!" she said. "I wonder what’s going to happen to me here?"
She couldn’t invent or imagine anything. Certainly she couldn’t even dimly foresee the truth.
Angelica awoke early the next morning and dressed quickly, determined to be ready before Mrs. Russell could possibly send for her. She needn’t have hurried; she waited from half-past six until half-past eight without hearing a sound. Time after time she opened her door and stepped out into the hall, to find it always empty and silent.
Finally she could tolerate it no longer, she was so much afraid that something was expected of her, that she was betraying her awful ignorance of rich people’s habits. She decided to go down-stairs, find a servant, and make diplomatic inquiries about the daily procedure.
As she was going along the hall, who should come out of his room, directly in her path, but the blond young man.
"Er—good morning," he said, with a slight frown.
"Good morning!" Angelica answered, and in her desperation added: "Say, would you mind telling me, when doessheget up?"
"Ten o’clock—somewhere about then. You’d better come and have your breakfast with me now. I’d like to have a little talk with you."
She followed him with a great assumption of carelessness—which, unfortunately, there was no one to see—down the stairs and into a little screened porch, where a willow table was laid. She was impressed by what she saw, but not astonished, for she was prepared for the utmost luxury. In fact, she couldn’t have been astonished, no matter what she had seen, so greatly did the marvels of which she had read in the Sunday papers exceed any possible reality.
On the table stood a copper coffee percolator, shining in the sun like gold, and steaming softly; a nickel chafing-dish, bright as silver; cut-glass cream-jugs and sugar-bowls like diamonds; and a cloth of hemstitched linen. There were little willow chairs with chintz cushions drawn up before each place, and sweet fresh flowers. She was in no way disappointed.
She sat down opposite the young man, resolved to do exactly as he did. He unfolded an immense napkin, then picked up the morning paper, and for a few minutes studied the Wall Street news intently. Then, as the servant entered, he laid the paper down and sat immovable while she drew him a steaming cup of coffee, prepared it, and put before him a cantaloupe cut into halves and filled with ice.
"Bring this young lady’s breakfast, if you please," he said, frowning again.
"Now, then, miss—what is your name?" he asked Angelica, when the maid had left the room.
"Kennedy—Angelica Kennedy."
"Miss Kennedy, I was speaking to my mother about you last night. I felt that it wasn’t at all the thing to—for her to have engaged you as a companion. You’re not qualified. It’s not fair to Mrs. Geraldine, and it’s not fair to you. You couldn’t fill such a position."
He spoke with decision, with authority, but not in the least unkindly. He spoke in the manner which his business training had given him; and Angelica accepted it in the manner she had learned from her factory experience. He was arbitrary and supreme; useless for her to complain, to resent. She didn’t even trouble to think whether he was just or not; simply, she was "fired."
"All right," she said, without emotion.
"Now," he said, "if you wish to remain in another capacity—if you wish to be Mrs. Russell’s maid——”
"No, I don’t."
"That’s for you to decide, of course; but it’s a pleasant, easy position, and the pay is better."
"I’m not thinking so much about pay. I could have got plenty of jobs that would have paid twice as much as this. Only——”
"Why did you want this?" he asked, with interest.
"Well, I thought I’d——” Her dark face flushed. "I want to learn—nice ways. I want to get on. I don’t want to be—like I am, all my life."
"You’re perfectly right!" he said, looking at her. "I’m glad to see you’re ambitious; but why choose this sort of way to get on? Why don’t you try to get into a good office?"
She shook her head.
"No! It wouldn’t do me a bit of good to get ahead in business if I—didn’t have nice ways. No! I watched the papers a long time for something I could have a try at, and then I saw Mrs. Russell’s ad, with ‘experience unnecessary.’ I knew I wasn’t the kind of girl that they want for a companion, but I thought if I could show ’em that I could be more useful than any one else, I might stand a chance."
He was silent for a time, while the servant reentered with a cantaloupe for Angelica and porridge for him. Then he looked up and studied her face.
"I think—if I’d understood the case better, perhaps——” he said. "But, anyway, why don’t you stay as my mother’s maid? There’s no use having a silly pride about such things. There always has to be a beginning."
"No!" she said again. "There’s no sense in that. If I can’t be—oh, right in the family, kind of, it won’t help me. I’ll go. I couldn’t stand being a servant."
He didn’t say any more, but continued his breakfast with hearty appetite, and with a dexterity which she found herself quite unable to copy. At last he had finished, and pushed back his chair.
"I’ve been thinking," he said. "You’re evidently out ofthe ordinary. I don’t see why you shouldn’t be given a chance—if you’re really anxious to improve yourself." He rose. "I’ll speak to Mrs. Geraldine this evening, when I get home," he said. "If she agrees, you shall stay. Good morning!"
He went out abruptly, leaving Angelica alone at the table. She jumped up in a violent hurry, before the servant could return and find her defenseless, and went out into the hall. She had no idea where to go, what to do; she was bewildered and rather miserable. The young man hadn’t made any effort to spare her feelings. Suggesting that she should be a servant!
"He’s got a nerve, all right!" she said to herself, but half-heartedly.
Really she thought that he was right in all that he had said, and that, in spite of his uncompromising frankness, he had been friendly. She liked him.
"Butshe’sdifferent," she reflected. "I won’t lethertrample all over me!"
She recalled the previous evening with burning shame. Those French words! She felt that Mrs. Russell had been unfair and unkind, and she went up-stairs, to find her, with deep reluctance. She was determined not to be meek and not to be frightened.
"You’ve got to act like you were somebody!" she said to herself. "You’ve got to show ’em you won’t stand any of their nonsense. People take you at your own valuation!"
That was a favorite phrase of hers. She had read it often, and it quite fell in with her cheap and pitiful philosophy. It was true enough, too, among the people she knew—people who weren’t capable of judging or analyzing a fellow being. She herself took others at their own valuation, because of an unconscious conviction that she was incapable of making an original appraisement.
So, resolutely looking as if she were somebody, she knocked at Mrs. Russell’s door.
"Come in!" said that suave and charming voice, and she entered.
She had expected to find Mrs. Russell still in bed, lazy and fascinating, and she was more or less surprised at finding her up and dressed, and scribbling away at a little desk. All her charm had vanished. She looked quite her five and fifty years; she was bony, sallow, horribly untidy in a green sweater and a short plaid skirt that showed her knoblike ankles and her great feet. It was rather surprising to see her hair coming down so early in the morning, a coil of it slipping out under her jaunty little hat. It gave her a most unpleasant, haglike look.
"Golf this morning!" she cried cheerfully. "Damn these letters! They’ll have to wait. Now, my dear, I’ll take you to Polly, because I’m in a hurry to be off. Mind what you say, won’t you? She’s so exacting! Make friends with her and stay near her. I’ve absolutely got to be gone all day—I’ve promised so many people at the Country Club, and I’ve got to get in a lot of practice before the big match. It’s a wonderful game, but it makes a perfect slave of you. It’s so fatally easy to lose your form. I take it so seriously. I worry myself ill over it. Come on!"
Angelica came after her slowly. She didn’t know whether she ought to say anything about her talk with the blond young man—whether he expected her to do so. Before she had decided, Mrs. Russell was knocking on a half-open door, and a voice bade them come in.
Angelica had had a preconceived idea that this daughter-in-law would be young and beautiful, a pampered darling. She was somewhat taken aback by the reality. There was a woman lying in bed, reading a newspaper, which she politely put down when they entered—a woman of forty, dark, sallow, with heavy eyes. She was apathetic and weary, but she was not dull; there was a quiet intelligence in her glance; she was indifferent without being uninterested. She was like a very tired but pleased spectator at a play. There wasa charm about her lassitude, a lingering handsomeness which she made no effort to retain.
"Good morning!" she said, with a smile.
"Good morning, Polly! Did you have a good night? I don’t believe you did, you poor soul! I couldn’t get you out of my mind. I couldn’t sleep, thinking about you. I would have come in, half a dozen times, only that I was afraid of disturbing you, if youhaddropped off. And it worried me so to think that I had to leave you to-day! But it couldn’t be helped. I’ve absolutely got to go to the dentist."
"Like that?" asked Polly, glancing at the other’s costume.
"My dear, of course not! I just put these on to do a little gardening. I was up so early; I thought I’d look after your beloved plants a bit."
"Now, why does she tell such lies?" thought Angelica. "Can’t she see that that woman doesn’t believe her?"
"You’re going out again, then?" asked Polly, with just a shade of reproachfulness in her voice.
"My dear, I’m obliged to go to the dentist’s——”
"You won’t be home to lunch, then, I suppose?"
"But you shan’t be alone!" cried Mrs. Russell brightly. "I’ve got Miss Kennedy here—the daughter of an old, old friend of mine!"
And then began a new series of the most preposterous lies, flowing in a bland, untroubled stream. She said that Angelica’s father was a clergyman living in the country, and that Angelica was going to be married, and that her mother had sent her to stop with Mrs. Russell while she bought her trousseau. She added a great deal of the grossest flattery about Polly’s superior taste.
"I advise you to consult her in everything!" she ended, turning to the astounded Angelica. "Now, then, I’ve got to fly. You two must have a nice, comfy chat!"
And she whimpered to Angelica as she went out:
"Just till she gets used to you, you know. Then we can tell her!"
Polly lay back on her pillows, looking at Angelica. She didn’t ask her to sit down. Angelica returned her gaze resentfully and miserably, ashamed of her preposterous position, but quite helpless, having no idea how to extricate herself. She didn’t feel able to say bluntly that Mrs. Russell’s story was a lie, although she could see that Polly was suspicious—more than suspicious—and she was certain that she could not sustain any sort of examination.
"When did you come?" inquired Polly.
"Last night."
"Alone?"
"No; she brought me."
"Mrs. Russell, you mean? And she says she was a school friend of your mother’s. I wonder what school!"
"I don’t know."
"Does she often visit your mother?"
"No."
"Then, as a matter of fact, you don’t know her very well?"
"Never saw her till the day before yesterday."
Polly smiled.
"Aren’t you afraid you’ll feel rather strange here? How long do you expect to stay?"
"I don’t know."
"You don’t know? I’ve forgotten—where did Mrs. Russell say you lived?"
"In New York."
"That’s odd—very odd! I certainly understood her to say you lived in the country."
Angelica was dumb.
"Where in New York? I know the city so well."
"At the Ritz," said Angelica boldly.
She was quite desperate now. She was sure that Pollysaw through her, and that it was only a matter of time before she was shamefully exposed.
"At the Ritz!" exclaimed Polly.
Their eyes met in a long and hostile look.
"Yes, at the Ritz," Angelica repeated.
"Why do you tell me that?" asked Polly quietly.
Angelica’s swarthy face grew scarlet.
"You needn’t think this was my idea!" she cried. "I don’t try to pass myself off as—some one different. She hired me, and I told her all about myself. My mother’s a janitress, and I worked in a factory!"
Polly’s face had flushed, too.
"What was the idea in trying to make you my companion?" she asked. "Did Mrs. Russell imagine I shouldn’t know the difference? Or perhaps she thought any one was good enough for me!"
Angelica was a hardy young devil, but this was too much even for her.
"I’m not—just any one," she muttered, with a quivering lip. "I’m not—dirt. I’m——”
"My dear child!" cried Polly, in sudden compunction. "Of course not! I didn’t mean to offend you in any way. I’ve nothing against you personally; it’s simply that I don’t want a companion at all. I—I can’t endure the idea of a person who is paid to amuse me—a stranger, who doesn’t know anything about me or the child I lost!"
She waited a moment, then she went on.
"I’m very sorry. It’s an awkward situation for both of us. Mrs. Russell has done it before. You see, the doctor said I was not to be left alone—all nonsense, but Mr. Eddie took it very much to heart, and he wants Mrs. Russell to stay with me. Naturally she finds it irksome, shut up in the house. If I can’t have a familiar face, then I’d rather be alone. I’m sorry, but it’s no use your wasting your time, my dear. You might be looking for something else." She held out her hand with a kindly smile. "Good-by!" she said.
Angelica didn’t move.
"I saw that Mr. Eddie," she said; "and he said he was going to speak to you about me. He said he’d keep me if you would."
"But what has he got to do with it?" asked Polly, smiling.
"Well, at first he thought I wouldn’t do; and then, after he thought it over, he said: ‘Well, I’ll agree ifshewill.’"
Polly was silent, perplexed to know how to get rid of this tenacious young creature. Angelica seized the opportunity.
"Well," she said, "I’m sorry I came, bothering you; but as long as I’m here, hadn’t I better stay till she gets home again? I’m better than nobody!"
It was the longest day Angelica had ever spent. She didn’t go out of the room; even lunch was brought to them there. She sat, answering whenever she was spoken to, but for the most part silent, looking out of the window at the country landscape, which held nothing to interest her gamine eye, and watching the clock. She couldn’t believe that something wouldn’t happen.
She tried, in her very crude way, to study Polly, but she had no success. She watched her lying for long stretches of time with her eyes closed, whether asleep or awake it was impossible to divine. Her face in repose was profoundly mournful, and, unrelieved by the fine black eyes, looked older and more worn. Her mouth had a kindly line, but it was the disillusioned, cynical kindness of one who expects no gratitude.
"I suppose she’s Mr. Eddie’s wife," reflected Angelica. "Well, she’s certainly a lot older than he is—ten years, I’d say. I wonder why they call her Mrs. Geraldine, when her name’s Polly!"
This detail puzzled her greatly. She fancied it must besome custom of rich people. Perhaps Polly was a nickname for Geraldine among them. It didn’t occur to her that it was a surname; she took it for granted that Polly was young Mrs. Russell.
Little by little, as always, her thoughts drifted off to her own future.
"I wonder how it’ll be when I’m married? Anyway, I bet you’d never catch me moping around like she does! If I was rich like her, and got sick, I’d have lots of flowers, and friends coming in all the time—everything nice and pretty and bright; and a trained nurse, too, I guess."
It must be admitted that Angelica had little sympathy. She had a certain amount of facile generosity. She had moods when she was willing to do a great deal for any one she liked; but it was impossible for her to put herself in the place of another, to compassionate any pain which she had not actually felt herself. Losing a baby seemed to her a grief of small significance. She had seen very little of babies, and wasn’t interested in them. To her, at nineteen, the only comprehensible sorrow was that of losing a lover.
She regarded Polly with irritation. She was rich, not too old, not too bad-looking; why didn’t she try to throw off this lethargy of grief and take some advantage of her opportunities? The life of a rich person, as seen by Angelica, was a very fantasy of gaiety. It might be gaiety covering a broken heart, if you wished, but always gaiety. The proper course for such as Polly would be to plunge into a whirlpool of excitement, and just reveal, from time to time, by a shadow stealing over her face, that her heart was broken. No, decidedly she could not comprehend this woman lying there with closed eyes, brooding over her immeasurable loss.
Polly, however, through her greater sophistication and experience, and through her native shrewdness, found Angelica no puzzle. Now and then she asked her a well-calculated question, and she soon learned that Angelica hadapparently spent all her nineteen years in learning, quite unconsciously, whatever would be useful in a lady’s service. She had spent innumerable Saturday afternoons sauntering through the big shops with girl friends, until her mind was richly stored with information. She knew just which place was best for any given article. She had compared styles and prices, and, with the amazing discernment of her sort, she had even distinguished among the various grades of customers. She knew who the really best people were, where they went for things, what they wanted, and what they paid. She knew things one wouldn’t have imagined her knowing—smart, out-of-the-way little shops for perfumes, for sweets, for lingerie.
Of equal or perhaps superior value was her deftness. She could manicure, she could dress hair; she had picked up, God knows how or where, an almost professional knowledge of make-up. She could sew, she could embroider, she could quite marvelously trim hats. She told all this to Polly, because she wanted to convince her of her usefulness. And she did.
Long before the afternoon was over, Polly had made up her mind that this girl would be valuable and likewise agreeable. She liked her, liked her lovely face and her husky, oddly touching voice, liked the character which she so ingenuously displayed. Here was a girl passionately anxious to please, yet without servility, who was at once ignorant and intelligent; one whom she could command, yet on whom she could lean.
However, she didn’t show any such approval. Who would, indeed, toward a person being employed?
The light had all faded out of the sky, and the big room was nearly dark. To Angelica, who never sat still, who wasnot formed for meditation, it was depressing to remain there in the deepening twilight, with no idea how much longer this wretchedness would endure. Polly didn’t stir; all the house was still.
Her imprisonment was terminated by the sudden entrance of Mr. Eddie.
"Light the lamp!" he cried sharply. "You’re an idiot, Polly, to sit here in the dark like this! You—Miss What’s-Your-Name—you mustn’t let her. It’s very bad for her. Try to keep her cheerful."
He had turned a switch as he spoke, and five electric lights had flashed on, making the room as brilliant as a stage. He looked anxiously at Polly.
"Eating better?" he asked. "I’ve brought you some oysters—something rather special. Are you coming down?"
"Not to-night, Eddie, thank you; but I’ll enjoy the oysters. Is your mother home yet?"
"No. I shan’t wait for her. I told Annie an early dinner. Half-past six sharp, miss! I’ve brought home a lot of work to do."
He went out again, with a curt nod at Angelica.
"You’d better get ready," said Polly. "He’s not very patient. He doesn’t like to be kept waiting."
"I am ready," said Angelica. "I haven’t any better clothes to put on."
She had risen, and was standing near the door. She knew that Polly wished her to go, but still she lingered, miserable but resolute.
"Did I do all right to-day?" she blurted out.
Polly opened her eyes.
"Why, certainly, my dear," she said. "Would you mind putting out all the lights but one?"
"But doesn’t he want it cheerful?"
"I think it ’ll be more cheerful that way," Polly answered, with a faint smile. "Now, then—thank you! I think I’ll rest until dinner-time."
"But were you satisfied with me?" insisted Angelica.
"Of course I was."
"Well, do you want me to stay? Because he’s coming to talk it over with you. Will you tell him that you want me?"
"Yes," said Polly. "I do want you—very much!"
Angelica was very nervous about having dinner with Mr. Eddie. He was obviously fastidious and hard to please, and she hadn’t the vaguest idea what his standards might be. She did what she could with her appearance; she washed her hands and face and brushed her hair, and then, having no watch or clock to advise her, went down-stairs.
She hadn’t been in the dining-room before, and she stopped, profoundly impressed, in the doorway. It was so exactly the dining-room she had expected—the grand, stately dining-room of the cinema drama, with paneled walls and sideboard loaded with plate, the opulently set table, the high-backed chairs, the flowers all about, the very air of dignity and richness.
There was the essential butler, too. She felt sure that the man bending over the sideboard was a butler; busy, no doubt, with work about which she was quite ignorant. She drew near to ask him the time, and was surprised to see him stuffing cigars into his pocket from three or four boxes that lay in a drawer. She didn’t know whether this was proper, whether it was part of a butler’s proper functions; but when she saw the man’s face, and observed his stealthy and hurried manner, she grew certain that he was stealing. One of those society thieves of whom she had read!
He was in evening dress, and he had some sort of perfume about him. He was a slender little man with neat, snow-white hair and a dapper white mustache. His face was bland, with a long upper lip that gave it a humorous look, and intelligent blue eyes.
He turned suddenly and saw her.
"Well!" he cried. "Upon my word! And who areyou?"
"That’s my business," said Angelica.
This was her idea of a non-committal answer. She could not decide whether he was a servant, a member of the family, or merely an outside thief who had dropped in, and she was anxious to make no avoidable mistakes.
"Of course it is!" he replied, cheerfully. "No doubt I’ll learn in the course of time. But perhaps you’ll enlighten me as to your status?"
She didn’t understand him, and she scowled.
"Perhaps you’ll tell me what you’re doing here?" he inquired.
"Well, what areyoudoing here?" she returned.
"Waiting," he answered imperturbably. "Waiting for dinner and Mr. Eddie."
"Oh, him! Well, he’s in. I saw him up-stairs."
"But do, for pity’s sake, tell me who you are! We don’t take pretty girls wandering about this house as a matter of course. You’re quite a startling vision, you know."
She didn’t like his airy gallantry; but she was sure now that he wasn’t an outside thief or a servant, and that he must therefore be a member of the family, entitled to answers for questions.
"I’mhercompanion," she said.
"Aha! And what is your name, if you please?"
"It’s Kennedy."
"Oh! Scotch, are you? You don’t look Scotch. You look like a French girl, I should say—one of these dark, passionate creatures...."
"All right!" she interrupted, scowling more heavily. "That’ll do about me. What’s the time?"
He pulled out his watch.
"Six-thirty. Do you dine with us, Miss Kennedy? I hope so. I feel——”
Just then Eddie came in, also in a dinner-jacket and incredibly neat—the very model of a correct young man. He bowed ceremoniously, if somewhat severely, to Angelica.
"Good evening, doctor!" he said to the white-haired man.
He touched an electric bell with his foot. The parlour maid came hastening in.
"I said half-past six!" said Mr. Eddie.
"Yes, sir, I know; but cook——”
"No excuses! You can certainly get some sort of dinner ready for me when I ask for it. Now hurry up! Never mind about what’s ready and what isn’t; just bring mesomethingat once."
He pulled out a chair for Angelica, and they all sat down in silence.
"Good Lord!" said Eddie suddenly. "What a life! I’m tired as a dog, and I’ve got to work all evening."
"Too bad!" said the doctor. "Anything I could do, my boy?"
"No, thanks."
There was silence again. The soup had come in, and Mr. Eddie gave it his undivided attention. He ate with amazing rapidity, one course after the other, and he expected to be served without an instant’s delay. Neither the doctor nor Angelica had ever finished when he had, and their plates were always whisked away with choice and coveted morsels on them. There was no sort of conversation—nothing more than Mr. Eddie muttering, with his mouth full, "All right, Annie!" and having one plate replaced by another.
But this was as Angelica liked it. She didn’t wish to talk or to be talked to; she wanted to sit at that table, with two men in evening dress, to contemplate the silver and china and linen, and to reflect with amazed delight upon her situation. A dream fulfilled!
Cautiously she surveyed her two companions—Mr. Eddie, looking rather harassed, and as oblivious of her as if she were invisible to him, and the dapper little white-haired man, whose eye often met hers with a glance stealthy andcurious. She decided that he must be Polly’s physician, and a man who must be given no leeway. She had seen his kind, standing outside stage entrances, with walking-stick and boutonnière and a smirk, or on corners where working girls passed on their way home.
Instantly he had finished, Mr. Eddie got up and went over to the sideboard, from the drawer of which he took the three rifled boxes. He didn’t seem to notice that they had been tampered with, but passed two to the doctor.
"Help yourself," he said. "I got these from a chap who imports them for private consumption. Put a couple in your pocket. They’re good."
The doctor helped himself modestly from both boxes, and sniffed at them.
"Ah!" he said. "I can tell! My boy, you can afford to indulge yourself; you’re one of the lucky ones."
"Yes," said Eddie. "Nothing but luck, of course!"
"I didn’t mean to disparage you," cried the doctor. "No one appreciates what you’ve done, and how hard you’ve worked, better than I. Just a little joke, Eddie!" He pushed back his chair and rose. "I’ll have to run out and fetch your mother home from the club," he said. "Au revoir!"
Mr. Eddie followed him so quickly that before she knew it Angelica found herself left alone at the table. She, too, hastened out of the room and up-stairs, and in a sort of panic knocked at Polly’s door.
"Who is it?" inquired Polly’s voice, languidly.
"Angelica!" she answered, forgetting, and hastily added: "Kennedy."
"I don’t need anything this evening, thank you. Good night!"
She turned away, completely at a loss. It was only half-past seven, hours before bedtime. What was she to do?
She went into her room. It was as charming and comfortable as she had remembered it, but it offered no prospect of amusement. She didn’t know whether she ought to go into the library or any of the rooms down-stairs. She wanted to, but she had a dread of being spoken to by a servant.
"Well, I’ll take a walk, then," she said. "No one can say a word against that!"
She put on her jacket and her rakish big black hat, and went sauntering down the hall. She had to pass the open door of a room, and in it she saw Mr. Eddie, writing. He saw her, too.
"Hello!" he cried. "Where are you going?"
"Out for a walk."
"Better not. It’s dark and lonely around here."
Angelica had paused.
"I’ve got to do something," she said.
"Sit down and read," he said, rather impatiently.
"I don’t like to read."
"Nonsense! Here, come in! Sit down! I’ll give you something you’ll like."
But she hesitated. His bedroom! Surely he didn’t expect her to go in there?
He did, though.
"Come in! Come in!" he cried, and she obeyed.
She couldn’t really believe that there was anything evil or dangerous about this worried young man sitting before a desk covered with papers. He tapped the back of a big armchair.
"Better take off your hat," he said. "It keeps off all the light."
She turned over the pages of the book he gave her, pleased to see that it had a great many pictures, and began dutifully to read. In spite of herself she became interested.
It was the third volume of a series, "Magnificent Women of the Past," and it contained sketches of the lives of the Empress Josephine, Mme. du Barry, Mme. de Montespan, Mary Stuart, Lady Hamilton, and many others. It wassensational, impossible stuff; but Angelica was neither a well-informed nor a discriminating reader. She was enthralled by this description of courts, of gallantry, of balls, fêtes, and levées, of kings, emperors, and princes; above all, by the radiant women who ruled over this amazing world.
She went on, page after page, stopping only to study the portraits of the dazzling beauties. She had never imagined anything like this. Of course, she had studied what was called history in the public school, but that was entirely concerned with battles and treaties; not a word of woman, except, very rarely, an entirely respectable heroine. She had thought of kings and queens as rather dull and solemn persons, also concerned with battles and treaties. She had never conceived of such a passionate and colourful and exciting life as was revealed in this book. It was a life unfortunately impossible in this actual world.
She came to the end of the life of Mme. de Montespan as imagined by the author, and closed the book, the better to reflect upon it. She sighed; she was disturbed by dim longings for an existence of this sort. She was full of dissatisfaction and preposterous ambitions. She was so immersed in the scenes of court life and in the pictures her imagination created that it was almost a shock to see Mr. Eddie sitting there in front of her, still working.
She stared at him thoughtfully. A nice-looking boy—perhaps something more than that. His face was boyish, but in no way weak; the features were all good, fine, firm, regular. She fancied—still dreaming of what she had been reading—that he looked like a young prince, that there was something in his brow, in his presence, that was noble.
Her glance wandered round his room. It was austere, handsome, immaculately neat. She liked it; it was manly.
Her roving attention had distracted Mr. Eddie. He looked up, frowned, and leaned back in his chair.
"Well?" he asked.
"It’s a nice book. I like it."
"That’s right. I’m very glad. Take it with you and finish it. It’ll do you good."
"How can it?"
He ran his fingers through his hair and surveyed her thoughtfully.
"In the first place," he said, "it’s a very good thing to read history. I read a great deal of it—lives of famous men, and so on. In the second place, it’ll give you some idea of what a woman can do."
"Yes, I know; only they’re all bad women," said Angelica, with simplicity.
Eddie flushed.
"Yes, but—everything was different in those days. They didn’t have our opportunities. Anyway, in some of the other volumes there are plenty of women who weren’t bad—Romans, and so on. What I meant is that it shows you what an influence a woman can have if she tries."
"I guess they didn’t have to try."
"Of course they did. They wanted to be powerful. They wanted to be magnificent. There aren’t any women like that now—no more magnificent women."
He fell silent, to think for a time of his mother, of Polly, of the clerks in his office, of girls he had danced with, of girls on the stage, of all his limited feminine acquaintance. Not a vestige of magnificence!
He was a queer chap, was Eddie. Born of a selfish and frivolous mother and a morosely indifferent father, neglected, left in the care of servants of the sort that always collect about an extravagant and careless mistress, he had never acquired as a matter of course those ideals which the average boy of his class takes for granted. He had a perfectly natural inclination toward truth, honour, and justice,and toward clean living, but he had had to discover these virtues laboriously, all alone. In consequence, he gave them a sort of perverted importance. He became somewhat of a prig.
And having with such difficulty discovered his truths, he was inclined to be a bit domineering and intolerant about them. He was angry and disappointed at finding any one imperfect.
What is more, he was for the first time in his life finding himself a person of some importance. Always before he had been under a disadvantage, always conscious of his "queerness," of having a mother who was a laughing-stock and a father who was a scandal. He was priggish and unsociable, but he wasn’t a scholar. He had done very badly in all the various schools to which he had been sent by fits and starts; and when at last he had been somehow got into college, he had done still worse. He had hated his failure there; he had so longed to be popular and friendly, and had been so markedly neither.
So he had gone into business at nineteen, and he had found himself at once. He did amazingly well. He had a clever, sympathetic, imaginative brain, he had good judgment, he knew how to handle his people, how to deal with men; but at the same time he had not very much common sense.
He was like one of those musical infant prodigies, so shamelessly exploited by their families. He had this amazing talent for making money, and the people about him, well aware of his virtue and his innocence, had known perfectly how to make use of his ability. He was a cruelly driven slave to his exalted idea of family obligations.
Eddie wasn’t aware of it, however. He was willing to spend all his youth in acquiring money for other people to spend. He took a sort of pride in exhausting himself. He was young enough and strong enough to enjoy affronting his health. It seemed to him a noble thing to support one’s family. This was one of his pet ideas—ideas which he had got from books or from other people’s talk, none of which had developed quietly and wholesomely from childhood, or from experience. His instincts were sound and admirable. He practically never had a base impulse; but his ideas were grotesque. He was, in some respects, a fool, and he was treated as fools must always be treated by the self-seeking.
There was truth in Angelica’s fancy. There was something in this boy that was what men chose to call kingly—a generosity, a fine force, a self-forgetfulness, a profound sense of his obligations, even toward this waif, so recently brought to his attention. He believed it his duty to help her.
"Why don’t you go into business?" he asked her abruptly.
"Why?"
"I think you’d do well. You seem level-headed. And there’d be some sort of future in it, instead of pottering about here like an old woman."
"But I don’t like business. I like to be here, with nice people, where I can learn something."
"That’s quite right, of course; but what will you do—later?"
"Well—I don’t know, exactly. I just think that if I can—sort of improve myself—some sort of chance will come some day."
She reflected a moment.
"All these magnificent women," she said. "They just kind of waited round for something to turn up, didn’t they? I mean, they didn’t plan what they were going to be. I haven’t thought it all out; but I mean to—oh, to goupall the time, to get to be somebody!"
Eddie, unconscious of his own infantile innocence, smiled at her naïveness, but admired her.
"I’ll see that you get a chance," he said. "And I’ll help you to learn, if you like. If you’ll study, I’ll give you what spare time I can."
"All right," said Angelica. "That’ll be fine! Only," sheadded, "what I want isn’t exactly things you study out of books. It’s—good manners, and the right way of talking."
"You’ll pick up all that from Mrs. Geraldine," returned Eddie. "You couldn’t find a better model. By the way, how did you get on with her to-day?"
"I guess she liked me. She said she wanted me to stay."
"That’s good!" he cried, very much pleased. "If Polly’ll take an interest in you, you’ll be absolutely all right. She’s a splendid woman."
"But she’s so mucholderthan you!" thought Angelica. "It’s so queer!"
"Yes," he went on, "Polly’s one of the best. Of course she’s not herself now, losing the little chap. He was nearly two years old, and a fine little fellow. Poor girl! She was wrapped up in him. We all were, for that matter."
Angelica was puzzled.
"But," she said, "don’t you——”
"Don’t I what?"
"I mean—it must be nearly as bad for you as for her."
"What?Why, there’s no comparison between a son and a nephew."
"For Gawd’s sake! Wasn’t he your son?"
"Of course not! My dear girl, you didn’t think I was Polly’s husband, did you?"
"Yes, I did," she faltered.
"I’m her brother-in-law. She’s my brother’s wife."
"Oh! She’s a widow, then?"
"No, no, no! He’s alive. He’s here, in this house; but he’s a poet, you know, and when he’s working he shuts himself up for days at a time. He’s a queer chap—a regular genius."
"That’s pretty hard on his wife, I should say."
"That’s what the wife of a fellow like Vincent must expect. He is a bit trying, but you have to make allowances. He’s very remarkable—writes beautiful stuff."
"I don’t like po’try," said Angelica, who had already taken a dislike to this brother.
"I’m not very fond of it, either, but I admire it."
"I don’t," she persisted.
"You shouldn’t say that. It’s childish. Every one admires poetry."
She maintained an obstinate silence. Eddie was rather at a loss. He believed that every one ought to admire poets; he faithfully endeavored to do so, and had made himself believe that he had succeeded. He felt that his brother was a genius, accountable to no one, and not to be blamed for faults which seemed to Eddie peculiarly disgusting and unmanly; but he didn’t know how to make Angelica admire his brother. Even the fact of Vincent’s genius was by no means established, and could not be demonstrated to an outsider, for he had never published anything yet, nor attempted to do so.
"He’s a very interesting chap," Eddie said. "Very!"
"Well, I’m glad he’s not my husband," said Angelica. "Shutting himself up like that—wouldn’t suitme!"
Eddie frowned.
"I should think it was a privilege to be the wife of—of a genius."
Again Angelica was silent.
"Of course," said Eddie, "I don’t pretend to understand him. We’ve never seen much of each other. He lived with my father and I lived with my mother. He was brought up differently—a Roman Catholic, for one thing; then he went to an English university for a year or two, and he’s traveled. Very well-educated chap; altogether different from me. A scholar, and very artistic."
"What does he do for a living?" Angelica asked.
"He’s just beginning his career," said Eddie. "It is very hard to get started with that sort of thing."
Angelica’s silence was eloquent.
"Then who’s this feller you call ‘doctor’?" she asked abruptly. "Does he live here?"
"That’s Dr. Russell, my mother’s second husband."
"Oh, I see! I had you all mixed up. But whose house is this—his?"
"No. It’s mine."
"Yours? Do they all live here with you?"
"Certainly," he said, reddening and frowning. "I want them to. I don’t want to live alone—no social life."
Poor devil! He was conscious of something ridiculous in his position, and yet he was proud of it. There weren’t many fellows of his age who could have done this. It had meant taking fearful risks, of course, and working without rest, but the worst of it was over now. He was really prominent in his world; he was a sort of financial prodigy, admired and watched. He called himself, on his office door, a stock-broker. He was on the road to becoming a millionaire; he had made up his mind to do it, and there was nothing to stop him.
"Well," said Angelica, "you’re awful good to them."
Again he frowned. They had both grown suddenly ill at ease, at a loss for words. Angelica got up.
"Good night!" she said abruptly. It was her way of terminating an awkward moment.
"Good night!" Eddie answered, rather absent-mindedly.
With her volume of "Magnificent Women" tucked under her arm, Angelica went back into her own room.
"He’s a fool," she said to herself, "keeping all those people; but thereissomething about him. I don’t know—I guess he’s kind of magnificent himself."
Sharp at ten o’clock the next morning Angelica knocked at Polly’s door. Her eyes were dancing, she was filled with an exhilarating sense of mischief, for she had been having breakfast with the doctor, and a regular rowdy breakfast it had been—the old delightful badinage of the street and the factory.
When she had come down the dining-room was deserted, and she had lingered about waiting for any one who might come. Presently, in had come the dapper little doctor. His face had lighted up marvelously when he saw her there alone; and he had told her archly that she was welcome as the flowers in the spring.
"That’s all right!" Angelica had retorted, belligerently. "Never you mind about me!"
And so the conversation had proceeded, flowery compliments on his side and a continuous show of resentment on hers—all as it should be.
"You’re a regular old devil!" she had told him. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself!"
"You’re a devil yourself!" he had answered. "A young devil, and a dangerous one, too. You could teach me a trick or two, I dare say!"
Then she had thrown a piece of bread at him, and he had sprung up and smothered her in a napkin, almost upsetting her chair backward, and she had given his necktie a terrific pull. She did so like this sort of thing!
She had a familiar and delightful feeling now toward Polly, such as she had so often felt toward teachers at schooland foremen in factories—that she had something up her sleeve, that she was slyly outraging authority.
"Come in!" said Polly.
She was still in bed, her breakfast, untouched, on a tray beside her. She looked stale, broken, weary in body and in spirit, miserably inferior to the sparkling girl who stood waiting for her orders.
"Good morning! Sit down," she said, politely enough.
She could say nothing further. Weary from a sleepless night, sick with grief and longing, lonely as a traveler stranded on a desolate shore, it seemed to her impossible to communicate with any one about her. She could think of no words that they would comprehend, no answer from them that would give her any possible solace.
She seemed to Angelica a sallow, listless woman of forty, who persisted very selfishly in staring out of the window and preserving a tedious silence. She had no faintest idea of that anguish of a fine and strong soul.
"Would you mind——” said Polly, suddenly. "There’s a little leather book in my desk, and a fountain pen. I’d like to write a little."
Angelica jumped up and brought them to her with alacrity. She felt very obliging this morning.
"Anything else I can do?" she asked cheerfully.
"No, thanks. It’s my diary. It’s just seven weeks ago that my child died."
She spoke quietly, but her face had assumed an odd, drawn look.
"Oh, Lord!" thought Angelica. "Now I suppose there’ll be a scene. And me feeling so happy!"
But there was no ‘scene,’ not even a tear. Polly had long ago got past that consolation. She put down her little book.
"Will you go and ask Mrs. Russell, please, when she wants to use the car? I think I’ll go out this afternoon."
Angelica sped off, glad to be released from this terribleennui, and knocked upon Mrs. Russell’s door. She found her engaged in a surprising occupation. She was carefully rouging her cheeks—that tough, weather-beaten, brown skin!
Her hair was carefully dressed, and she wore a handsome embroidered white linen frock. She was tall and straight, with good shoulders and a fine, free play of limb. From the back she wasn’t bad, she looked like a muscular and athletic young woman until she turned and one saw her face. With the rouge and the blackened eyebrows, it had an indescribably repulsive look of dissipation; it was as if a man had rouged and bedecked himself.
"Well!" she said. "How do I look?"
"All right," said Angelica dubiously.
"Tell me frankly if there’s the least thing. I must be very nice to-day. We’re giving a lunch to a young English woman, a tennis champion, and I’m on the reception committee. Do Ireallylook nice?"
"Yes," said Angelica, in a still more doubtful tone.
"You don’t think so!" cried Mrs. Russell. "I can see that! But, my dear, I don’t suppose a woman of my age ever can look very nice."
However, the glance she gave to her reflection in the mirror was quite a complacent one. She began covering her face with pink powder, while she talked; and grimacing as she carefully avoided the blackened eyebrows.
"How did you get on with Mrs. Geraldine?" she asked.
"All right; she’s not so bad," said Angelica. "Only sort of dopey."
"‘Dopey’? What’s that?"
Angelica flushed.
"Oh, like people that take dope—morphine and opium and all that."
"But mydeargirl, Polly doesn’t——”
"Iknow. I only said she acted like people that do. It’s just a word people use about any one that’s quiet and——”
"Mrs. Geraldine’s very reserved—quite different from me. I’m obliged to say everything that comes into my head. But I dare say her life has made her like that."
"Why has it? What kind of life has she had?" asked Angelica, with naked curiosity.
"My dear, you see, she was married before to a perfectly dreadful sort of man. He drank, and I don’t know what else—absolutely no good at all. You see, she used to be a concert singer when she was young. It’s very interesting to hear her tell about her days in Germany, when she studied there. And then she came back to New York and got an engagement to sing in one of the first-class restaurants. She really comes from anicefamily—Ohio people—not in society at all, butnice. They weren’t at all well off, so I suppose they were glad to have her earning her own living. Anyway, they were away off in Ohio, so they couldn’t have stopped her very well, could they?"
"No," said Angelica, astounded at the very idea of the melancholy Mrs. Geraldine singing in a restaurant.
"She must have been quite a pretty girl," Mrs. Russell went on. "I’ve seen pictures of her. She says she had the most distressing experiences with men, following her, and so on. She says she was really just about to give up the restaurant singing when one night this tremendously handsome man was waiting for her when she came out. She says he was so different from the usual sort—so gentlemanly, and so on; andhe’dbeen so impressed withher. My dear, have I too much powder on?"
"Yes, on your forehead. Who was this feller—the handsome one?"
Mrs. Russell stared at her in perplexity. Then she suddenly recollected the subject of their talk.
"Oh, yes, of course! He told her afterward that he was so much impressed with her refinement and distinction. I suppose she did look well, standing up on the platform in a white dress. And her voice is charming. He walked homewith her that night and they were married three weeks later. Of course, as she says, she didn’t really know him at all; and he turned out to be perfectly dreadful. She went through the greatest misery with him. He was killed in an accident; he was in a taxi with some chorus-girl. I don’t really know much about him; she doesn’t like to talk about him, but I’ve seen a picture of him. Hewashandsome, but coarse, I think. He was quite successful in his business, whatever it was, but he spent all he made, and only left her a tiny little income. She made it do, though, she lived so quietly."
Angelica was delighted to get all this information. She leaned against the doorway in one of her careless, beautiful gamine attitudes, her dark eyes on Mrs. Russell’s face with an attention that pleased that veteran gossip.
"She’s a charming woman. Still, I was amazed at Vincent, of all people! She’s so much older than he—years, and she shows it. Of course, when they were first married three years ago, she was quite different—much nicer-looking. Poor soul! She really had a wretched time with Vincent. He’s frightfully trying. I really think she’s been wonderfully patient with him. I’ll never forget the day he came into my room and told me he was married. I couldn’t believe it; he’s so fickle and erratic. I never expected him to settle down. I don’t suppose he really has. And when I saw her—simply a plainly dressed woman of thirty-five! Of course, she has a certain sort of charm about her; she’srestful. I like being with her—but not all the time. I can’t understand why she clings to me so. She’s so self-reliant."
How indeed was Mrs. Russell to understand all this? She with her thistledown heart, her life of infantile amusement-seeking, to understand the solitude of this woman from a small town, accustomed to the friendly faces of neighbors, of people who had known her all her life and were interested in all that concerned her; this woman who had twice givenher love with simplicity and generosity, to have it twice despised, a wife without a husband, a mother bereft of her child? Polly hadn’t a soul near her who took the least interest in her,no one to talk to. That was what made her so silent. She didn’t, she couldn’t utter flippancies; she longed for one of her own good, earnest, kindly small-town women, who would wish to listen and know how to console.
And in default of this, then she must have Mrs. Russell, who could at least talk about her lost child. She could say to her, "Do you remember this day and that day, this that he said, and how he looked?"
She had loved her child with a passion tiresome to all those about her. She had been absorbed in him; she had seen in this little boy not alone her only child, but her only friend, a fellow countryman in a hostile land. And now he was gone.
"She’s charming," Mrs. Russell repeated; "but I should never have picked her out for Vincent. She’s not the sort of woman to hold him. He’s so odd, you know. He always used to say that he’d never marry, and that he was looking for the perfect woman, whatever he fancied a perfect woman was. I don’t know what it was he saw in Polly. She’s not beautiful, or fascinating, as far as I can see. Of course, there’s her voice. It’s lovely, but still—— He met her at some sort of tea, he told me, and he said that he was enchanted by the sight of her, sitting there in her plain dark blue suit, with her hands folded, so quiet and clever, you know, in comparison with all the other women. I must admit I was disappointed."
She paused for a few minutes, to rub her big square nails with pink paste. When she began to talk again, she had unaccountably changed her point of view. Instead of her bland contempt for Polly, she had, somehow, within her queer soul developed a great indignation against her son.
"He has behaved abominably," she said, with a frown. "I can’t understand him. For days at a time he doesn’t speak toher; doesn’t even see her. And all for nothing! He took her up in a caprice, and he’s dropped her in another caprice. Do you know, my dear, all the time their child was so ill, he wouldn’t see it? He said he could do nothing to help it, and he couldn’t bear to look at suffering. And at last, when it died, the thing became so scandalous that Eddie had to go and actually force him to come into its room. So he came sauntering in, and what do you think he said? ‘Thank God I really hadn’t had time to grow attached to it yet.’"
"That was pretty bad," said Angelica. But she was more curious than shocked; she was eager to hear more about this atrocious Vincent.
"And now," went on Mrs. Russell, "whenever the poor soul begins to practise, he comes stamping out of his room and shouts down the stairs, ‘Stop! Stop! For God’s sake, stop!’"
"He must be pretty selfish!"
"Selfish! That’s not the word. He squeezes every one dry. He bothered me a while ago until I sold one of my rings to get money for him; and as soon as I’d handed him the money he walked out of the room without even saying, ‘Thank you.’ And when I tried to speak to him, he didn’t even stop; just called back to me, ‘I’m not in the mood for your conversation to-day. I couldn’t endure it.’ He’s a devil!"
"A devil!" thought Angelica. "I wish I could get at him! I bet I could handle him! I’d like to see him, anyway. I’d devil him! And maybe if he had a wife with more fight in her, more spirit, he’d be different. He’d be different tome!" her secret heart cried. "No man could ever neglect or hurtme. No man could ever really win me. I shall be loved, adored, obeyed, but I shall not give much. I am Angelica, the beautiful, the proud, the free!"
She was very ready to hear more, but that was not to be.The aggrieved voice of Courtland, the chauffeur, was heard in the hall.