“Do come down and talk to a lonely, neglected waif, if only for a few minutes.“P. V. R.”
“Do come down and talk to a lonely, neglected waif, if only for a few minutes.
“P. V. R.”
“P. V. R.”
Patty laughed as she read it, but she only said to the maid who brought it:
“Please say to Mr. Van Reypen that there is no answer.”
The maid departed, but, in less than ten minutes, returned with another note:
“You’re afraid of Aunty Van! Come on. I will protect you. Just for a few moments’ chat on the stairs.“P. V. R.”
“You’re afraid of Aunty Van! Come on. I will protect you. Just for a few moments’ chat on the stairs.
“P. V. R.”
“P. V. R.”
Again Patty sent the message, “There is no answer.”
Soon came a third note:
“I think you are horrid! And you don’t dance prettily at all!”
“I think you are horrid! And you don’t dance prettily at all!”
“Oho!” thought Patty. “Getting saucy, is he?”
She made no response whatever to the maid this time, but she was not greatly surprised when another note came:
“If you don’t come down, I’m going out to drown myself. P.”
“If you don’t come down, I’m going out to drown myself. P.”
Patty began to be annoyed. The servants must think all this very strange, and yet surely she could not help it.
“Wait a moment, Delia,” she said. “Please say to Mr. Van Reypen that I will see him in the library, at once.”
After a moment she followed the maid downstairs, and went straight to the library, where the young man awaited her. His face lighted up with gladness, as he held out his hand.
“Forgive me if I was impertinent,” he said, with such a charming air of apology that Patty had to smile.
“I forgive the impertinence,” she returned, “but you are making real trouble for me.”
“What do you mean?” he cried, looking dismayed.
“I mean that I am your aunt’s companion, and trying to earn my living thereby. Now if you persist in secretly coming to the house,—pardon me if I am frank,—and if you persist in sending foolish notes to me, your aunt will not let me stay here, and I shall lose a good position through your unkindness.”
Patty was very much in earnest, and her words were sincere, but her innate sense of humour couldn’t fail to see the ridiculous side of it all, and the corners of her mouth dimpled though she kept her eyes resolutely cast down.
“It’s a shame the way she keeps you tied toher apron string,” he blurted out, uncertain whether Patty was coquetting, or really distressed.
“Not at all,” she replied. “I’m here to attend on her pleasure, and my place is by her side whenever she wants me there.”
“How can any one help wanting you there?” broke out Philip, so explosively that Patty, instead of being offended, burst into a ringing laugh.
“Oh, you are too funny!” she exclaimed. “Mrs. Van Reypen said you were given to saying things like that to everybody.”
“I don’t say them to everybody!”
“Yes, you do; your aunt says so. But now that you’ve said it to me, won’t you go away and stay away?”
“How long?”
Patty thought quickly. “Till next Friday—a week from to-day.”
“Oh, you want to get acclimatised, all by yourself!”
“Yes,” said Patty, demurely, “I do. And if you’ll only keep away,—you know your aunt asked you not to come back for a week,—if you’ll keep away till next Friday, I’ll never ask you another favour.”
“Huh! that’s no inducement. I love to have you ask me favours.”
“Well, then, I never shall if you don’t grant this first one.”
“And if I do?”
“If you do I’ll promise you almost anything you ask.”
“That’s a large order! Well, if I stay away from this house until you get solid with Aunty Van——”
“I said a week.”
“Well, to-day’s Friday. If I stay away a week will you persuade aunty to invite me to dinner next Friday night?”
“I will.”
“Can you persuade her to do that?”
“I’m sure I can by that time.”
Patty’s eyes were dancing. She had come to Mrs. Van Reypen’s on Thursday. She would, therefore, leave on Thursday, and she was sure that lady would have no objections to inviting her nephew to dinner after her “companion’s” departure.
“Are you going to stay?” demanded Philip suspiciously.
“I’m here a week on trial,” said Patty, demurely. “Your aunt needn’t keep me longerif I don’t suit her. And I know I won’t suit her if she thinks I receive notes from her nephew.”
“Oh, I see! You’re here a week on trial, and if I am chummy with you Aunty Van won’t keep you! Oh, yes! Why, of course! To be sure! Well, Miss Fairfield, I make this sacrifice for your benefit. I will keep away from here during your trial week. Then, in return, you promise to use your influence to get me an invitation to dine here next Friday.”
“I do,” returned Patty. “But do you need an invitation to a house where you seem to feel so much at home?”
“Only when you’re in it,” declared the young man, frankly. “I think Aunty Van fears I mean to kidnap you. I don’t.”
“I’m sure you don’t,” said Patty, flashing a smile at him. “I think we could be good friends, and I hope we shall be. But not until after next Friday.”
CHAPTER XVIAN INVITATION DECLINED
Philip Van Reypen went away, and his aunt never knew that he had been to her house on that occasion.
“I’m glad that boy has sense enough to keep away when I tell him to,” she remarked at luncheon, and Patty hastily took a sip of water to hide her uncontrollable smile.
“Yes, he seems to obey you,” she said, by way of being agreeable.
“He does. He’s a good boy, but too impressionable. He’s captivated by every girl he meets, so I warn you again, Miss Fairfield, not to notice his pretended interest in you.”
Patty tossed her head a little haughtily.
“Do not be alarmed, Mrs. Van Reypen,” she said, “I have no interest whatever in your nephew.”
She was a little annoyed at the absurd speechesof the old lady, and determined to put a stop to them.
“I should hope not,” was the reply. “A person in your position should not aspire to association with young gentlemen like my nephew.”
Patty was really angry at this, but her common sense came to her aid. If she elected to play the part of a dependent, she must accept the consequences. But she allowed herself a pointed rejoinder.
“Perhaps not,” she said. “Yet I suppose a companion of Mrs. Van Reypen’s would meet only the best people.”
“That, of course. But you cannot meet them as an equal.”
“No,” agreed Patty, meekly. Then to herself she said: “Only a week of this! Only six days now.”
That afternoon they went to the dressmaker’s.
Patty put on a smart tailored costume, and almost regretted that she had left her white furs at home. But she and Nan had agreed that they were too elaborate for her use as a companion, so she wore a small neckpiece and muff of chinchilla. But it suited well her dark-blue cloth suit and plain but chic black velvet hat.
The dressmaker, an ultra-fashionable modiste, looked at Patty with interest, recognising in her costume the work of adept hands.
Moreover, Patty’s praise and criticism of Mrs. Van Reypen’s new gowns showed her to be a young woman of taste and knowledge in such matters.
Both the modiste and her aristocratic patron were a little puzzled at Patty’s attitude, which, though modest and deferential, was yet sure and true in its judgments and opinions.
At last, when Mrs. Van Reypen was undergoing some tedious fitting, Patty had an inspiration.
“May I be excused long enough to telephone?” she asked.
“Certainly,” said Mrs. Van Reypen, who was in high good humour, because of her new finery. “Take all the time you like.”
Patty had noticed a telephone booth in the hall, and, shutting herself in it, she called up Nan.
By good fortune Nan was at home, and answered at once.
“Oh!” began Patty, giggling, “I’ve so much to tell you, and it’s all so funny, I can’t say a word. We’re at the dressmaker’s now, and Itook this chance to call you up, because I won’t be overheard. Oh, Nan, it’s great fun!”
“Tell me the principal facts, Patty. And stop giggling. Is she kind to you? Is she patronising? Have you a pleasant room? Do you want to come home? Are you happy there?”
“Oh, Nan, wait a minute, for goodness’ sake! Yes, she’s patronising—she won’t let me speak to her grand nephew. Oh—I don’t mean her grand nephew! I mean her grand, gorgeous, extraordinary nephew. But I don’t care; I’ve no desire to speak to him.”
“Does he live there?”
“No; and never mind about him, anyway. How are you all? Is father well? Oh, Nan, it seems as if I’d been away from home a year! And what do you think? I have to dance for her to amuse her!”
“Patty! Not really? Well, you can do that all right.”
“Sure I can! Oh, she’s a peach! Don’t reprove my slang, Nan; I have to be so precise when I’m on duty. Well, I must say good-by now. I’ll write you a long letter as soon as I get a chance. To-night we’re going to see Mlle. Thingamajig dance, and to-morrow night, to the opera. So you see I’m not dull.”
“Oh, Patty, I wish you’d drop it all and come home! I don’t like it, and Fred doesn’t either.”
“Tra-la-la! ’Twill all be over soon! Only six days more. Expect me home next Thursday afternoon. Love to all. Good-by. Patty!”
Patty hung up the receiver, for she knew if she talked any longer she’d get homesick. The sound of Nan’s familiar voice made her long for her home and her people. But Patty was plucky, and, also, she was doggedly determined to succeed this time.
So she went back to Mrs. Van Reypen with a placid countenance, and sat for an hour or more complimenting and admiring the costumes in process of construction.
Somehow the afternoon dragged itself away, and the evening, at the theatre, passed pleasantly enough.
But the succeeding days went slowly.
Mrs. Van Reypen was difficult to please. She was fretty, irritable, inconsequent, and unjust.
What suited her one day displeased her highly the next.
So long as Patty praised, complimented, and flattered her all went fairly well.
But if Patty inadvertently disagreed with her,or expressed a contrary opinion, there was a scene.
And again, if Patty seemed especially meek and mild Mrs. Van Reypen would say:
“Don’t sit there and assent to everything I say! Do have some mind of your own! Express an honest opinion, even though it may differ from mine.”
Then, if Patty did this, it would bring down vials of wrath on her inoffensive head. Often she was at her wits’ end to know what to say. But her sense of humour never deserted her, and if she said something, feeling sure she was going to get sorely berated for saying it, she was able to smile inwardly when the scathing retort was uttered.
Sunday was an especially hard day. It was stormy, so they could not go out.
So Mrs. Van Reypen bade Patty read sermons to her.
When Patty did so she either fell asleep and then, waking suddenly, declared that Patty had been skipping, or else she argued contrary to the doctrines expressed in the sermons and expected Patty to combat her arguments.
“I’m tired of hearing you read,” she said, at last. “You do read abominably. First you goalong in staccato jerks, then you drone in a monotone. Philip is a fine reader. I love to hear Philip read. I wish he’d come in to-day. I wonder why he doesn’t? Probably because you’re here. He must have taken a violent dislike to you, Miss Fairfield.”
“Do you think so?” said Patty, almost choking with suppressed laughter at this version of Philip’s attitude toward her.
“Yes, I’m sure he did. For usually he likes my companions—especially if they’re pretty. And you’re pretty, Miss Fairfield. Not the type I admire myself,—I prefer brunettes,—but still you are pretty in your own way.”
“Thank you,” said Patty, meekly.
“And you’re especially pretty when you dance. I wish you could dance for me now; but, of course, I wouldn’t let you dance on Sunday. That’s the worst of Sundays. There’s so little one can do.”
“Shall I sing hymns to you?” inquired Patty, gently, for she really felt sorry for the discontented old lady.
“Yes, if you like,” was the not very gracious rejoinder, and, without accompaniment, Patty sang the old, well-known hymns in her true, sweet voice.
The twilight was falling, and, as Patty’s soothing music continued, Mrs. Van Reypen fell asleep in her chair.
Exhausted by a really difficult day Patty also dropped into a doze, and the two slept peacefully in their chairs in front of the dying embers of the wood fire.
It was thus that Philip Van Reypen found them as he came softly in at five o’clock.
“Well, I’ll be excused,” he said, to himself, “if I ever saw anything to beat that!”
His gaze had wandered from his sleeping aunt to Patty, now sound asleep in a big armchair.
The crimson velvet made a perfect background for her golden curls, a bit tumbled by her afternoon exertions at being entertaining.
Her posture was one of graceful relaxation, and pretty Patty had never looked prettier than she did then, asleep in the faint firelight.
“By Jove!” exclaimed the young man, but not aloud, “if that isn’t the prettiest sight ever. I believe there’s a tradition that one may kiss a lady whom one finds asleep in her chair, but I won’t. She’s a dear little girl, and she shan’t be teased.”
Then Mr. Philip Van Reypen deliberately, and noiselessly, lifted another large armchairand, carefully disposing his own goodly proportioned frame within it, proceeded to fall asleep himself—or if not really asleep, he gave an exceedingly good imitation of it.
Patty woke first. As she slowly opened her eyes she saw Philip dimly through the now rapidly gathering dusk.
Quick as a flash she took in the situation, and shut her eyes again, though not until Philip had seen her from beneath his own quivering lids.
After a time she peeped again.
“Why play hide-and-seek?” he whispered.
“What about your promise?” she returned, also under her breath.
“Had to come. Aunty telephoned for me.”
“Oh!”
Then Mrs. Van Reypen awoke.
“Who’s here?” she cried out. “Oh, Philip, you!”
She heartily kissed her nephew, and then rang for lights and tea.
“Miss Fairfield,” she said, not untimidly, but with decision, “you are weary and I’m not surprised at it. Go to your room and rest until dinner time! I will send your tea to you there.”
“Yes, Mrs. Van Reypen,” said Patty, demurely, and, with a slight impersonal bow to Philip, she left the room.
“Oh, I say! Aunty Van!” exclaimed the young man, as Patty disappeared, “don’t send her away.”
“Be quiet, Philip,” said his aunt. “You know you don’t like her, and she needs a rest.”
“Don’t like her!” echoed Philip. “Does a cat like cream? Aunty Van, what’s the matter with you, anyway? Who is she?”
“She’s my companion,” was the stern response, “my hired companion, and I do not wish you to treat her as an equal.”
“Equal! She’s superior to anything I’ve ever seen yet.”
“Oh, you rogue! You say that, or its equivalent, about every girl you meet.”
“Pooh! Nonsense! But I say, aunty, she’ll come down to dinner, won’t she?”
“Yes—I suppose so. But mind now, Philip, you’re not to talk to her as if she were of your own class.”
“No’m; I won’t.”
Reassured by the knowledge that he should see her again, Philip was most affable and agreeable,and chatted with his aunt in a happy frame of mind.
Patty, exiled to her own room, decided to write to Nan.
She filled several sheets with accounts of her doings at Mrs. Van Reypen’s, and gloated over the fact that there were now but four days of her week left.
“I shall win this time,” she wrote, “and, though life here is not a bed of roses, yet it is not so very bad, and when the week is over I shall look back at it with lots of funny thoughts. Oh, Nan, prepare a fatted calf for Thursday night, for I shall come home a veritable Prodigal Son! Of course, I don’t mean this literally; we have lovely things to eat here, but it’s ‘hame, hame, fain wad I be.’ I won’t write again, I’ll probably get no chance, but send Miller for me at four o’clock on Thursday afternoon.”
After writing the letter Patty felt less homesick. It seemed, somehow, to bring Thursday nearer, to write about it. She began to dress for dinner, and, in a spirit of mischief, she took pains to make a most fetching toilette.
Her frock was of white mousseline de soiethat twinkled into foolish little ruffles all round the hem.
More tiny frills gambolled around the low-cut circular neck and nestled against Patty’s soft, round arms.
Her curly hair was parted, and massed low at the back of her neck, and behind one ear she tucked a half-blown pink rosebud.
The long, dreamy day had roused in Patty a contrary wilfulness, and she was quite ready for fun if any came her way.
At dinner Mrs. Van Reypen monopolised the conversation. She talked mostly to Philip, but occasionally addressed a remark to Patty. She was exceedingly polite to her, but made her feel that her share of the conversation must be formal and conventional. Then she would chatter to her nephew about matters unknown to Patty, and then perhaps again throw an observation about the weather at her “companion.”
Patty accepted all this willingly enough, but Philip didn’t.
He couldn’t keep his eyes off Patty, who was looking her very prettiest, and whose own eyes, when she raised them, were full of smiles.
But in vain he endeavoured to make her talk to him.
Patty remembered Mrs. Van Reypen’s injunctions, and, though her bewitching personality made such effort useless, she tried to be absolutely and uninterestingly silent.
“Aunty Van,” said Philip, at last, giving up his attempts to make Patty converse, “let’s have a little theatre party to-morrow night. Shall us? I’ll get a box, and if you and Miss Fairfield will go, I’ll be delighted.”
“I’ll go, with pleasure,” replied his aunt, “but Miss Fairfield will be obliged to decline. She has been out late too often since she has been here, and she needs rest. So invite the Delafields instead, and that will make a pleasant quartette.”
For an instant Patty was furiously angry at this summary disposal of herself, but when she saw Philip’s face she almost screamed with laughter.
Crestfallen faintly expressed his appearance. He was crushed, and looked absolutely stunned.
“How he is under his aunt’s thumb!” thought Patty, secretly disgusted at his lack of self-assertion, but she suddenly changed her mind.
“Thank you, Aunty Van,” she heard him saying,in a cool, determined voice, “but I prefer to choose my own guests. I do not care to ask the Delafields—unless you especially desire it. I am sorry Miss Fairfield cannot go, but I trust you will honour me with your presence.” Philip had scored.
Mrs. Van Reypen well knew if she went alone with her nephew, under such conditions, he would be sulky all the evening. Nor could she insist on having the Delafields asked after the way he had put it.
She then nobly endeavoured to undo the mischief she had wrought.
“No, Philip, I don’t care especially about the Delafields. And if Miss Fairfield thinks it will not tire her too much I shall be glad to have her accept your kindness.”
His kindness, indeed! Patty felt like saying, “Do you know I am Patricia Fairfield, and it is I who confer an honour when I accept an invitation?”
It wasn’t exactly pride, but Patty had been brought up in an atmosphere of somewhat old-fashioned chivalry, and it jarred on her sense of the fitness of things to have Philip’s invitation to her referred to as a “kindness.”
So she decided to take a stand herself.
“I thank you for yourkindness, Mr. Van Reypen,” she said, with just the slightest emphasis onkindness, “but I cannot accept it. I quite agree with Mrs. Van Reypen that I need rest.”
The speech was absurd on the face of it, for Patty’s rosy, dimpled cheeks and sparkling eyes betokened no weariness or lassitude.
But Mrs. Van Reypen accepted this evidence of the girl’s obedience to her wishes, and said:
“You are right, Miss Fairfield, and my nephew will excuse you from his party.”
Philip sent her a reproachful glance, and Patty dropped her eyes again, wishing dinner was over.
At last the ladies left the table, and Philip rose and held aside the portière while his aunt passed through.
As Patty followed, he detained her a moment, and whispered:
“It is cruel of you to punish me for my aunt’s unkindness.”
“I can’t help it,” said Patty, and as her troubled eyes met his angry ones they both smiled, and peace was restored.
“After Friday,” whispered Patty, as she went through the doorway.
“After Friday,” he repeated, puzzled by her words, but reassured by her smiles.
And then Mrs. Van Reypen sent Patty to her room for the night, and when Philip came to the drawing-room he found he was destined to be entertained by his aunt alone.
“Of course,” said Patty, to her own reflection in her mirror, “a companion can’t expect to sit with ‘the quality,’ but it does seem a shame to dress up pretty like this and then be sent to bed at nine o’clock! Never mind, only three evenings more in this house, and then victory for Patty Fairfield!”
CHAPTER XVIITHE ROAD TO SUCCESS
Patty adhered to her resolution not to go to the theatre on Monday night, but when she saw Mrs. Van Reypen and Philip start off she secretly regretted her decision.
She loved fun and gaiety, and it suddenly seemed to her that she had been foolishly sensitive about Mrs. Van Reypen’s attitude toward her.
However, it couldn’t be helped now, so she prepared to spend the evening reading in the library.
She would have liked to hold a long telephone conversation with Nan and her father, but she thought she had better not, for there were so many house servants on duty that a maid or a footman would be likely to overhear her.
She played the piano and sang a little, then she wandered about the large and lonely rooms.Patty was a sociable creature, and had never before spent an evening entirely alone, unless when engaged in some important and engrossing work.
But after a while the telephone rang, and when the parlour-maid told her the call was for her she flew to the instrument with glad anticipation.
“Hello!” she cried, and “Hello!” returned a familiar voice.
“Oh, Ken! of all people. Howdidyou know I was here?”
“Oh, I found it out! How are you? May I come to see you?”
“No, indeed! I’m a companion. I’m not expected to have callers. But I’m glad to talk to you this way. I’m alone in the house, except for the servants.”
“Alone! Then let me come up for a few minutes, and chat.”
“No; Mrs. Van Reypen wouldn’t like it, I’m sure. But, oh, Ken, I’m making good this time! On Thursday the week will be up, and I’ll get my fifteen dollars. Isn’t that gay?”
“You’re a plucky girl, Patty, and I congratulate you. Is it very horrid?”
“No, it isn’t exactly horrid, but I’m fearfullyhomesick. But it’s only three more days now, and won’t I be glad to get home!”
“And we’ll be glad to have you. The goldfish are dull and moping, and we all want our Patty back again.”
“That’s nice of you. But, Ken, how did you know where to find me? I made Nan and father promise not to tell.”
“Well, I may as well confess: I basely worried it out of Miller. I asked him where he took you to last Thursday afternoon.”
“Oh! I meant to tell him not to tell, but I forgot it. Well, it doesn’t matter much, as you chanced to strike a time when I’m alone. But don’t call me up again. I’m not supposed to have any social acquaintances.”
“Good for you, Patty! If you play the game, play it well. I expect you’re a prim, demure companion as ever was.”
“Of course I am. And if the lady didn’t have such a fishy nephew I’d get along beautifully.”
“Oho! A nephew, eh? And he’s smitten with your charms, as they always are in novels.”
“Yes,” said Patty, in a simpering tone.
“Oh, yes! I can’t see you, but I know youhave your finger in your mouth and your eyes shyly cast down.”
“You’resoclever!” murmured Patty, giggling. “But now you may go, Ken, for I don’t want to talk to you any more. Come round Thursday night, can’t you, and welcome me home?”
“Pooh, you’re late with your invitation. Mrs. Fairfield has already invited me to dinner that very evening.”
“Good! Well, good-by for now. I have reasons for wishing to discontinue this conversation.”
“And I have reasons for wishing to keep on. If you’re tired talking, sing to me.”
“‘Thou art so near and yet so far,’” hummed Patty, in her clear, sweet voice.
“No, don’t sing. Central will think you’re a concert. Well, good-by till Thursday.”
“Good-by,” said Patty, and hung up the receiver.
But she felt much more cheerful at having talked with Kenneth, and the coming days seemed easier to bear.
They proved, however, to be quite hard enough.
The very next day, when Patty went down tothe breakfast room, determined to do her best to please Mrs. Van Reypen, she found that lady suffering from an attack of neuralgia.
Though not a serious one, it seriously affected her temper, and she was cross and irritable to a degree that Patty had never seen equalled.
She snapped at the servants; she was short of speech to Patty; she found fault with everything, from the coffee to the cat.
After breakfast they went to the sunny, pleasant morning room, and Patty made up her mind to a hard day.
Then she had an inspiration. She remembered how susceptible Mrs. Van Reypen was to flattery, and she determined to see if large doses of it wouldn’t cure her ill temper.
“How lovely your hair is,” said Patty, apropos of nothing. “I do so admire white hair, and yours is so abundant and of such fine texture.”
As she had hoped, Mrs. Van Reypen smiled in a pleased way.
“Ah, Miss Fairfield, you should have seen it when I was a girl. It was phenomenal. But of late years it has come out sadly.”
“You still have quantities,” said Patty, andvery truthfully, too, “and its silvery whiteness is so becoming to your complexion.”
“Do you think so?” said Mrs. Van Reypen, smiling most amiably. “I think it’s much wiser not to colour one’s hair, for now-a-days so many people turn gray quite young.”
“Yes, they do. I’ve several friends with gray hair who are very young women indeed.”
“Yes,” agreed the other, comfortably, “white hair no longer indicates that a woman is advanced in years. You speak very sensibly, Miss Fairfield.”
Patty smiled to herself at the success of her little ruse, “And, after all,” she thought, “I’m telling her only the truth. Her hair is lovely, and she may as well know I appreciate it.”
“Have you ever tried,” she went on, “wearing it in a coronet braid?”
“No; I’ve thought I should like to, but I’ve worn puffs so long I don’t know how to change.”
“Let me do it for you,” said Patty. “I’m sure I could dress it to please you. At any rate, it would do no harm to try.”
So up they went to Mrs. Van Reypen’s dressing room, and Patty spent most of the morning trying and discussing different modes of hair-dressing.
Mrs. Van Reypen’s maid was present, and she admired Patty’s cleverness and deftness at the work.
“You have a touch,” declared Mrs. Van Reypen, as she surveyed herself by the aid of a hand-mirror. “You’re positively Frenchy in your touch. Where did you learn it? Have you ever been a lady’s-maid?”
“No,” said Patty, suppressing her smiles, “I never have. But I’ve spent a winter in Paris, and I picked up some French notions, I suppose.”
“You certainly did. You are clever with your fingers, I can see that. Can you trim hats?”
“Yes, I can,” said Patty, smiling to herself at the recollection of her experiences with Mme. Villard.
“Humph! You seem pretty sure of yourself. I wish you’d trim one for me, then; but I don’t want you to spoil the materials.”
“I’ll do my best,” said Patty, meekly, and Mrs. Van Reypen instructed her maid to bring out some boxes.
“This,” she said, taking up a finished hat, “is one my milliner has just sent home, and I think it a fright. Now here’s a last year’s hat, but the plumes are lovely. If you could untrim thisfirst one, and transfer these plumes, and then add these roses—what do you think?”
Secretly Patty thought the new hat was lovely just as it was, but her plan that morning was to humour the testy old lady and, if possible, make her forget her neuralgic pains.
So she took the hats, and sat down to rip and retrim them.
Meantime, Mrs. Van Reypen instructed her maid to practise dressing her hair in the fashion Patty had done it.
But the maid was not very deft in the art, and soon Patty heard Mrs. Van Reypen shrilly exclaiming:
“Stupid! Not that way! You have neither taste nor brains! Place the braid higher. No, not so high as that! Oh, youarean idiot!”
Deeming it best not to interfere, Patty went on with her work.
Also, Mrs. Van Reypen went on with her scolding, which so upset the long-suffering maid that she fell to weeping and thereby roused her mistress to still greater ire.
“Crying, are you!” she exclaimed. “If you had such a painful neck and shoulder as I have you well might cry. But to cry about nothing! Bah! Leave me, and do not return until youcan be pleasant. Miss Fairfield, will you please finish putting up my hair?”
Patty laid down her work, and did as she was requested. She was sorry for the maid and incensed at Mrs. Van Reypen’s injustice and disagreeableness, but she felt intuitively that it was the best plan to be, herself, kind and affable.
“Oh, yes, I’ll do it!” she said, pleasantly. “Your hat is almost finished, and we can try it on with your hair done this way. I’m sure the effect will be charming.”
Mollified at this, Mrs. Van Reypen smiled benignly on her companion, and also smiled admiringly at her own mirrored reflection.
“Now,” said Patty, as, a little later, she brought the completed hat for inspection, “I will try this on and see how it looks.”
Mrs. Van Reypen seated herself again in front of her dressing mirror, and with gestures worthy of Madame Villard herself, Patty placed the hat on her head.
“It’s most becoming,” began Patty, when Mrs. Van Reypen interrupted her.
“Becoming?” she cried. “It is dreadful! It isfearful. It makes me look like an old woman!”
With an angry jerk she snatched the offendinghat from her head and threw it across the room.
Patty was about to give a horrified exclamation when the funny side of it struck her, and she burst into laughter. Mrs. Van Reypen was really an elderly lady, and her angry surprise at being made to look like one seemed very funny to Patty.
But in a moment she understood the case.
She had thought the hat in question of too youthful a type for Mrs. Van Reypen, and in retrimming it had made it more subdued and of a quieter, more elderly fashion.
But she now realised that she had been expected to make it of even gayer effect than it had shown at first. This was an easy matter, and picking up the hat she straightened it out, and hastily catching up a bunch of pink roses and a glittering buckle, she said:
“Oh, it isn’t finished yet; these other trimmings I want to put in place while the hat is on your head.”
“Oh,” said Mrs. Van Reypen, only half-convinced.
But she sat down again, and Patty replaced the hat, and then adjusted the roses and the buckle, giving the whole a dainty, pretty effect, whichthough over-youthful, perhaps, was really very becoming to the fine-looking old lady.
“Charming!” she exclaimed, letting her recent display of bad temper go without apology. “I felt sure you could do it. This afternoon we will go out to the shops and buy some materials, and you shall make me another hat.”
They did so, and, though it meant an afternoon of rather strenuous shopping, Patty didn’t mind it much, for Mrs. Van Reypen couldn’t fly into a rage in the presence of the salespeople.
And so the days dragged by. Patty had hard work to keep her own temper when her employer was unreasonably cross and snappish, but she stuck to her plan of flattering her, and it worked well more often than not.
Nor was she insincere. There were so many admirable qualities and traits of Mrs. Van Reypen that she really admired, it was easy enough to tell her so, and invariably the lady was pleased.
But she often broke out into foolish, unjustifiable rages, and then Patty had to wait meekly until they passed over.
But when, at last, Wednesday evening had gone by, and she went to her room, knowingit was the last night she should spend under that roof, she was glad indeed.
“Another week of this would give me nervous prostration!” she said to herself. “But to-morrow my week is up, and that means Success! I have really and truly succeeded in earning my own living for a week, and I’m glad and proud of it. I knew I should succeed, but I confess I didn’t think I’d score so many failures first. But perhaps that makes my success all the sweeter. Anyway, I’m jolly glad I’m going home to-morrow. Wow! but I’m homesick.”
Then she tumbled into bed, and soon forgot her homesickness in a sound, dreamless sleep.
Patty had been uncertain whether to tell Mrs. Van Reypen the true story of her week of companionship or not; but on Thursday morning she decided she would do so.
And, as it chanced, after breakfast Mrs. Van Reypen herself opened the way for Patty’s confidences.
“Miss Fairfield,” she said, as they sat down in the library, “you know our trial week is up to-day.”
“Yes, Mrs. Van Reypen, and you remember that either of us has the privilege of terminating our engagement to-day.”
“I do remember, and, though I fear you will be greatly disappointed, I must tell you that I have decided that I cannot keep you as my companion.”
As Patty afterward told Nan, she was “struck all of a heap.”
She had been wondering how she should persuade Mrs. Van Reypen to let her go, and now the lady was voluntarily dismissing her! It was so sudden and so unexpected that Patty showed her surprise by her look of blank amazement.
“I knew you’d feel dreadful about it,” went on Mrs. Van Reypen, with real regret in her tone, “but I cannot help it. You are not, by nature, fitted for the position. You are—I don’t exactly know how to express it, but you are not of a subservient disposition.”
“No,” said Patty, “I’m not. But I have tried to do as you wanted me to.”
“Yes, I could see that. But you are too high-strung to be successful in a position of this kind. You should be more deferential in spirit as well as in manner. Do I make myself clear?”
“You do, Mrs. Van Reypen,” said Patty, smiling; “so clear that I am going to tell youthe truth about this whole business. I’m not really obliged to earn my own living. I have a happy home and loving parents. My father, though not a millionaire, is wealthy and generous enough to supply all my wants, and the reason I took this position with you is a special and peculiar one, which I will tell you about if you care to hear.”
“You sly puss!” cried Mrs. Van Reypen, with a smile that indicated relief rather than dismay at Patty’s revelation. “Then you’ve been only masquerading as a companion?”
“Yes,” said Patty, smiling back at her, “that’s about the size of it.”