CHAPTER XXVII.
Thea did not wait for a second bidding from her indignant lover. She ran hurriedly out of the open door, and in her haste almost fell over Emmie, who had been listening outside. They both paused, and Thea cried out, scornfully:
“So you’ve been listening again!”
“Anybody could hear that chose. You left the door open so that every one could hear you triumph in rejecting another one of my brothers,” Emmie answered, sulkily.
Frank came hastily to the door.
“Emmie, were you listening?” he asked, in surprise.
“The door was open; I couldn’t help hearing.”
“You might have coughed.”
“Yes; but she didn’t want to!” Thea cried, furiously. “She doesn’t think it any disgrace to eavesdrop. She listened to-day when Tom asked me—asked me—the same thing. Boo-hoo! oh, boo-hoo!” breaking into a sudden storm of sobs.
“Don’t cry, dear; you’ll spoil your eyes for the dance,” Frank said, kindly.
“You needn’t care if she cries them out!” snapped his sister.
“But I do,” said the young man. “And so Tom asked you, too, Thea?” he said, with a short, mirthless laugh. “Well, did you tell him ‘No’?”
“Of course—the ungrateful little flirt! After all the Hintons had done for her, too! Not that I think she’s half good enough for either of my brothers, but—”
“Hush, Emmie! You ought to be ashamed of yourself!” Frank said, severely; and Thea, who was drying her eyes on a tiny lace handkerchief, chimed in, reproachfully:
“I don’t think you ought to be mad, Emmie. I can’t see that I’ve done anything wrong. Why, I thought Tom and Frank were my brothers—or just as good—and I’d as soon thought of marrying my grandmother!”
“You never had any grandmother that anybody knows of, and it was an honor to you for either of my brothers to offer to give you a name, as you never had one of your own!” stormed resentful Emmie; but Frank put his hand sternly over her mouth.
“Oh, for shame, Emmie! I would not have believed this of you!” he said, sharply. “But I can see through it, and so can Thea, no doubt. It’s not for Tom and me you’re taking up so angrily, it’s because you’re jealous over Charley McVey! You think maybe she’ll cut you out with him to-night.”
“I don’t—I—” Emmie began to splutter furiously, but a slight tinkle at the door-bell made her start, then rush wildly upstairs.
She knew that Charley had come, according to his promise, to accompany her to the dance.
Frank opened the door, holding a fold of Thea’s dress so that she should not follow Emmie, lest the quarrel be renewed.
“Come in, Charley; walk into the parlor; Emmie’ll be down in a minute,” he said; and as the young man disappeared he whispered, hurriedly:
“Go and bathe your face, Thea, and come along with me to the dance. There’s no one else to go with you now. Emmie,” laughing a little, “would tear your eyes out before she’d let you go with her and Charley.”
The bright face dimpled into a faint smile.
“I don’t want to. You needn’t tell her that he asked me first; but he did,” she whispered, roguishly; then turning to the stairway, “I’m going alone. It’s moonlight, and I’m not the least afraid.”
“You sha’n’t!”
“I will!”
“I’ll walk behind you!”
“You won’t!”
“Wait and see, that’s all,” said Frank Hinton, resolutely; and this, after all, was the manner of their going.
After the first couple had got a square ahead, Thea darted out alone, and after walking a few rods with her head high, glanced furtively behind her; Frank was coming out of the gate.
Thea began to run. Then Frank ran a little, too. She slackened her pace for fear of overtaking Emmie, and he slackened his too. At no time did he approach her, but he kept her all the time within sight, and when they reached the illuminated building where the party was to come off, he chose to enter by her side. Afterward he left her severely alone, as he saw that she desired him to do.
Tom was already there, looking “killing,” so some of the girls said, in his elegant evening attire, with a tuberose in his button-hole. He was a consummate little dandy, and a favorite with most of the girls, who spent many a dollar that might have been saved, for the sake of leaning over the counter of Brocade & Bromley and chatting with the agreeable head clerk.
Tom frowned when beautiful Thea came in looking so charming in her white mull and blue sash, with a string of white wax beads around her bare, white neck, her exquisitely molded arms guiltless of all adornment, save the narrow lace that edged the short sleeves. He devoted himself assiduously to the other girls, and did not speak to Thea the whole evening, a spiteful procedure which was copied by his sister, so that by and by it began to be whispered among the guests that “all the Hintons seemed to be mad with Thea West.”
Thea did not seem to mind it in the least. She was as gay as usual, perhaps more so. She danced all the time and she talked incessantly. Her blue eyes sparkled, her pink cheek glowed with excitement. She flirted this time if never before, and she had a little group of admirers about her all the time. Her one thought was to spite Emmie Hinton for her unkindness, and when Charley McVey joined the group about her she threw him some of her sweetest smiles and glances.
“Just to punish Emmie,” she said to herself. “Not the equal of the Hintons, indeed! I’ll show her whether Charley thinks so or not.”
She knew very well that Charley had been longing to desertEmmie’s standard and come over to hers for a week past, but for Emmie’s sake she had held him at arm’s-length.
But now Thea was struggling with a hot and bitter resentment against the girl she had heretofore loved so dearly. Emmie had wounded her cruelly, and the impetuous girl vowed to herself that she would pay her back.
So it was that Emmie saw with alarmed eyes her beloved join the train of Thea’s admirers. She saw him dance with Thea three times, and when they went into supper Thea was hanging on his arm.
In a perfect fury of secret anger and jealousy, Emmie managed to get quite near them at the table. She was wild to hear what they were talking about.
“Thea will be making up some dreadful story about me, of course,” she thought, for, having entertained the young man on the way to the dance with a recital of Thea’s shortcomings, she supposed the girl would retaliate on the first opportunity.
But she was mistaken. Thea was only looking pretty and interested, and stuffing her rosy mouth with goodies, which she seemed to enjoy like a child. It was fickle, faithless Charley who was doing the talking—telling Thea all about the base-ball game, and even offering to take her to the next one.
Naughty Thea! She knew quite well that Emmie was very close, and that she was eagerly “swallowing every word,” as she said to herself, and there was no need of raising her voice ever so slightly; but she did, so that several others beside Emmie heard the sweet girlish voice reply:
“Oh, thank you, Mr. McVey! I always enjoy seeing the game so much, and I would be glad to go with you, but the truth is, I have another engagement. Besides, I’m quite sure that Emmie expects you to take her to see it. She has as good as told me so.”
“And, mamma, it was all I could do to keep from catching hold of her then and there and giving her a shaking!” cried Emmie, pouring her sorrows into her mother’s ear a few hours later, when she had come home with Tom from the dance, having had high words with faithless Charley before she left.
“I told him at the door when he followed me out to see me home that I did not desire the company of one who had taken me to the party and then neglected me all the evening for the most outrageous flirt in the world! So I pushed away his arm and called Tom to come with me home,” she said, angrily,between her bitter sobs, for rankling jealousy had stirred poor Emmie’s nature to its deepest depths of pain.
Mrs. Hinton had been confined to her bed several days with a sprained ankle, and her husband being away from home, Emmie shared her mother’s room at night, so she took advantage of her opportunity to relate the whole story of Thea West’s transgressions.
“And there is this thing about it, mamma,” she added, as she undid the rich masses of her thick brown hair and let it fall loosely about her plump white shoulders, “either Thea West has got to leave this house or I will leave it!”
“Oh, dear, oh, dear, I only wish your father was here to advise me!” cried her mother, weakly.
“I told Tom the same thing as we were coming home, and he declared I was quite right. He did not blame me for being so determined about it,” pursued Emmie, who always domineered over her weak little mother.
“But, my dear, where is Thea to go, I should like for you to tell me?” she said, with feeble remonstrance.
“To the De Veres, of course; the people papa got her from,” answered Emmie, recklessly. “I’ll bet that man knows all about her, anyway, for papa says, you remember, that Thea took to him the minute she opened her eyes on the train that day, and of course if she had not known him already she would have been timid and huffish as she was with the others.”