Katie giggled appreciatively. Her mercurial temperament had already sent her from the depths to the heights.
"The dinner all spoiled while I cry like a fool," she said. "You ready pretty soon. I serve."
She hastened to the kitchen, and I turned to Dicky inquiringly.
"I suppose you think you have gotten into a lunatic asylum, Madge. Of all the queer things that Katie should apply for a job here and that you should take her."
"I didn't know you ever kept house in a flat before, Dicky."
"It was a very short experience," he returned, "only three months. Four of us, Lester, Atwood, Bates and myself pooled our rather scanty funds and rented a small apartment. We advertised for a general housekeeper, and Katie answered the advertisement. She had been over from Poland only a year at a cousin's somewhere on the East side, and she used to annoy us awfully getting to the flat so early in the morning and cleaning our living room while we were trying to sleep. But she was a crack-a-jack worker, so we put up with her superfluous energy in cleaning. Then one day I discovered her standing with a letter in her hand looking off into space with her eyes full of misery. She had heard of some relative."
"Of course you wanted to paint her," I suggested.
"You bet," Dicky returned. "The idea came to me in a flash. You can see what a heroic figure she was. I had her get into her Polish dress—she had brought one with her from the old country—and I painted her as Poland—miserable, unhappy Poland. Gee! but I'm glad you happened to run across her. We'll put up with anything from her until I get that picture done."
Try as I might I could not share Dicky's enthusiasm. I knew it was petty, but the idea of my maid acting as Dicky's model jarred my ideas of the fitness of things.
But I had sense enough to hold my peace.
I know of nothing more exasperating to a hostess than to have her guests come to her home too early. It is bad enough to wait a meal for a belated guest, but to have some critical woman casually stroll in before one is dressed, or has put the final touches—so dear to every housewifely heart—on all the preparations, is simply maddening.
I am no exception to the rule. As I heard the voices of Lillian Gale and her husband and I realized that they had arrived at 3:30 in the afternoon, when they had been invited for an evening chafing dish supper, I was both disheartened and angry.
But, of course, there was but one thing to do, much as I hated to do it. I must go into the living room and cordially welcome these people. As I slipped off my kitchen apron I thought of the hypocrisy which marks most social intercourse. What I really wanted to say to my guests was this:
"Please go home and come again at the proper time. I am not ready to receive you now."
I had a sudden whimsical vision of the faces of Dicky and theUnderwoods if I should thus speak my real thoughts. The thoughtin some curious fashion made it easier for me to cross the room toLillian Gale's side, extend my hand and say cordially:
"How good of you to come this afternoon!"
"I know it is unpardonable," Lillian's high pitched voice answered. "You invited us for the evening, not for the afternoon, but I told Harry that I was going to crucify the conventions and come over early, so I would have a chance to say more than two words to you before the rest get here."
Harry Underwood elbowed his wife away from my side with a playful push, and held out his hand. His brilliant, black eyes looked down into mine with the same lazy approving expression that I had resented when Dicky introduced me to him at the theatre.
I cudgelled my brain in vain for some airy nothing with which to answer his nonsense. I never have had the gift of repartee. I can talk well enough about subjects that interest me when I am conversing with some one whom I know well, but the frothy persiflage, the light banter that forms the conversation's stock in trade of so many women, is an alien tongue to me.
"You are just as welcome as Mrs. Underwood is," I said heartily at last. Fortunately he did not read the precisely honest meaning hidden in my words.
"Come on, Harry, into my room," urged Dicky, taking him by the arm. "I've got a special brand cached in there, and had to hide it so mein frau wouldn't drink it up."
I suppose my face reflected the dismay I felt at this intimation that the women would begin drinking so early. I feared for the repetition of the experience of Friday evening. But the laws of conventions and hospitality bound me. I felt that I could not protest. Mrs. Underwood apparently had no such scruples. She clutched Dicky by the arm and swung him around facing her.
"Now, see here, my Dicky-bird," she began, "you begin this special bottle kind of business and I walk out of here. I should think you and Harry would have had enough of this the other evening. We came over here today for a little visit, and tonight we'll sit on either the water wagon or the beer wagon, just as Mrs. Graham says. But you boys won't start any of these special drinks, or I'll know the reason why."
"Oh, cut it out, Lil," her husband said, not crossly, but mechanically, as if it were a phrase he often used. But Dicky laughed down at her, although I knew by the look in his eyes that he was much annoyed.
"All right, Lil," he said easily. "I suppose Madge will fall in gratitude on your neck for this when she gets you into the seclusion of her room. You haven't any objection to our having a teenty-weenty little smoke, have you, mamma dear?"
"Go as far as you like," she returned, ignoring the sneers.
As I turned and led the way to my room, I was conscious of curiously mingled emotions. Relief at the elimination of the special bottle with its inevitable consequences and resentment that Dicky should so weakly obey the dictum of another woman, battled with each other. But stronger than either was a dawning wonder. From the conversation I had overheard in the theatre dressing-room and trifling things in Mrs. Underwood's own conduct, I had been led to believe that she was sentimentally interested in Dicky, and that some time in the future I might have to battle with her for his affections. But her speech to him which I had just heard savored more of the mother laying down the law to a refractory child than it did of anything approaching sentiment. Could it be, I told myself, that I had been mistaken?
Our husbands looked exceedingly comfortable when we rejoined them, for they were smoking vigorously and discussing the merits of two boxers Mr. Underwood had recently seen. As we entered the room both men, of course, sprang to their feet, and I had a moment's opportunity to contrast their appearance.
Dicky is slender, lithe, with merry brown eyes and thick, brown hair, with a touch of auburn in it, and just enough suspicion of a curl to give him several minutes' hard brushing each day trying to keep it down. Harry Underwood, taller even than Dicky, who is above the medium height, is massive in frame, well built, muscular, with black hair tinged with gray, and the blackest, most piercing eyes I have ever seen. I was proud of Dicky as I stood looking at them, while Lillian exchanged some merry nonsense with Dicky, but I also had to acknowledge that Harry Underwood was a splendid specimen of manhood.
As if he had read my thoughts, his eyes caught mine and held them. To all appearances he was listening to the banter of Dicky and his wife, but there was an inscrutable look in his eyes, an enigmatical smile upon his lips, as he looked at me that vaguely troubled me. His glance, his smile, seemed significant somehow, as if we were old friends who held some humorous experience in common remembrance. And I had never seen him but once before in my life.
I shrugged my shoulders, ever so slightly. It is a habit of mine when I am displeased, or wish to throw off some unpleasant sensation of memory. I was almost unconscious of having used the gesture. But Harry Underwood crossed the room as if it had been a signal, and stood looking down quizzically at me.
"Little lady," he began, "you shouldn't hold a grudge so well. It doesn't harmonize with your eyes and your mouth. They were meant for kindness, not severity. If there is any way that I can show you I am humbled to the dust for coming here I'll do any penance you say."
"You must be mistaken, Mr. Underwood." I strove to control my voice. "I have no grudge whatever against you, so you see you are absolved in advance from my penance."
"Will you shake hands on it?" He put out his large, white, beautifully formed hand and grasped mine before I had half extended it.
I felt myself flushing hotly. Of all the absolutely idiotic things in the world, this standing hand in hand with Harry Underwood, in a formal pact of friendship or forgiveness or whatever he imagined the hand-clasp signified, was the most ridiculous. He was quick enough to fathom my distaste, but he clasped my hand tighter and, bending slightly so that he could look straight into my eyes he said, lazily smiling:
"You are the most charming prevaricator I know. You come pretty near to hating me, little lady. But you won't dislike me long. I'll make a bet with myself on that."
"Hold that pose just a minute. Don't move. It's simply perfect."
Lillian Underwood's merry voice interrupted her husband's declaration. With clever mimicry she struck the attitude of a nervous photographer just ready to close the shutter of his camera. Dicky stood just behind her too, also smiling, but while Lillian's merriment evidently was genuine, I detected a distaste for the proceedings behind Dicky's smile, which I knew was forced.
Lillian slipped in an imaginary plate, then springing to one side stood pretending to clasp the bulb of the shutter in her hand, while she counted: "One, two, three, four, five—thank you!"
"Now if you will just change your expressions," she rattled on. "Harry, why don't you take both her hands? Then if Mrs. Graham will smile a little we will have a sentimental gem, or if she makes her expression even a trifle more disapproving than it is I can label it, 'Unhand me, villain.'"
"I never take a dare," returned her husband, and snatched my other hand. But I was really angry by this time, and I wrenched my hands away with an effort and threw my head a trifle haughtily, although fortunately I was able to control my words:
"Do you know, people, that there will be no food for you tonight unless I busy myself with its preparations immediately? Mrs. Underwood, won't you entertain those boys and excuse me for a little while?"
I went into the dining room and put on the kitchen apron I had taken off when I heard the voices of my early guests. Almost immediately Lillian appeared arrayed in the apron I had given her. She came up to the table and surveyed it with appraising eyes.
"I am glad of this chance to speak with you alone, for I want to explain to you about him."
She stopped with an embarrassed flush. I gazed at her in amazement.Lillian Underwood flustered! I could not believe my eyes.
"You are not used to us or our ways, or I shouldn't bother to tell you this. But I can see that you are much annoyed at Harry, and I don't blame you. But you mustn't mind him. He is really harmless. He falls in love with every new face he sees, has a violent attack, then gets over it just as quickly. You are an entirely new type to him, so I suppose his attack this time will be a little more prolonged. He'll make violent love to you behind my back or before my face, but you mustn't mind him. I understand, and I'll straighten him out when he gets too annoying."
The embarrassed flush had disappeared by this time. She was talking in as cool and matter-of-fact manner as if she had been discussing the defection of a cook.
My first emotion was resentment against my husband.
Why, I asked myself passionately, had Dicky insisted upon my friendship with these people? Suppose they were his most intimate friends? I was his wife, and I had nothing whatever in common with them. Knowing them as well as he did, he must have known Harry Underwood's propensities. He must also have known the gossip that connected his own name with Lillian's. He should have guarded me from any contact with them. I felt my anger fuse to a white heat against both my husband and Lillian.
An ugly suspicion crossed my mind. Lillian Gale's absolute calmness in the face of her husband's wayward affections was unique in my experience of women. Was the secret of her indifference, a lack of interest in her own husband or an excess of interest in mine? Did she hope perhaps to gain ground with Dicky with the development of this situation? Was her warning to me only part of a cunningly constructed plan, whereby she would stimulate my interest in Harry Underwood?
I was ashamed of my thoughts even as they came to me. Lillian Gale seemed too big a woman, too frank and honest of countenance for such a subterfuge. But I could not help feeling all my old distrust and dislike of the woman rush over me. I had a struggle to keep my voice from being tinged with the dislike I felt as I answered her:
"I am sure you must be mistaken, Mrs. Underwood. Such a possibility as that would be unspeakably annoying We will not consider it."
"I think you will find you will have to consider it," she returned brusquely, with a curious glance at me "But we do not need to spoil our afternoon discussing it."
It was well after 7 o'clock when the ringing of the door bell told me that the Lesters had come. Dicky welcomed them and introduced me to them. Mrs. Lester was a pretty creature, birdlike, in her small daintiness, and a certain chirpy brightness. I judged that her mentality equalled the calibre of a sparrow, but I admitted also that the fact did not detract from her attractiveness. She was the sort of woman to be protected, to be cherished.
"I'm afraid I shall be very dull tonight. I am so worried about leaving the baby. She's only six months old, you know, and, I have had my mother with me ever since she was born until two weeks ago, so I have never left her with a maid before. This girl we have appears very competent, says she is used to babies, but I just can't help being as nervous as a cat."
"Are you still worrying about that baby?" Mrs. Underwood's loud voice sounded behind us. "Now, look here, Daisy, have a little common sense. You have had that maid over a year; she has been with your mother and you since the baby was born; there's a telephone at her elbow, and you are only five blocks away from home. Wasn't the child well when you left?"
"Sleeping just like a kitten," the proud mother answered. "You just ought to have seen her, one little hand all cuddled up against her face. I just couldn't bear to leave her."
Over Lillian Gale's face swept a swift spasm of pain. So quickly was it gone that I would not have noticed it, had not my eyes happened to rest on her face when Mrs. Lester spoke of her baby. Was there a child in that hectic past of hers? I decided there must be.
"Why don't you telephone now and satisfy yourself that the baby is all right, and instruct the maid to call you if she sees anything unusual about her?" I queried.
"Tell her you are going to telephone every little while. Then she will be sure to keep on the job," cynically suggested Mrs. Underwood.
"Oh, that will be just splendid," chirped Mrs. Lester. "Thank you so much, Mrs. Graham. Where is the telephone?"
"Dicky will get the number for you," said Mrs. Underwood, ushering her into the living room. I heard her shrill voice.
"Oh, Dicky-bird, please get Mrs. Lester's apartment for her. She wants to be sure the baby's all right."
Then I heard a deeper voice. "For heaven's sake, Daisy, don't make a fool of yourself. The kid's all right." That was Mr. Lester's voice, of course. Neither the tones of Dicky nor Harry Underwood had the disagreeable whining timbre of this man's.
Lillian's retort made me smile, it was so characteristic of her.
"Who unlocked the door of your cage, anyway? Get back in, and if you growl again tonight there will be no supper for you."
We all laughed and I went to help Katie put the finishing touches to our dinner. When I returned Mrs. Lester was seated in an armchair in the corner as if on a throne, with Harry Underwood in an attitude of exaggerated homage before her.
I felt suddenly out of it all, lonely. These people were nothing to me, I said to myself. They were not my kind. I had a sudden homesickness for the quiet monotony of my life before I married Dicky. I thought of the few social evenings I had spent in the days before I met Dicky, little dinners with the principals and teachers I had known, when I had been the centre of things, when my opinions had been referred to, as Lillian Gale's were now.
I went through the rest of the evening in a daze of annoyance and regret from which I did not fully emerge until we were all at the dinner table, with Dicky officiating at the chafing dish. Then suddenly Mrs. Lester turned to me, her face filled with nervous fears.
"Oh, Mrs. Graham, I don't believe I can wait for anything. I am getting so nervous about baby. I know it's awful to be so silly, but I just can't help it."
"Daisy!" Her husband's voice was stern, his face looked angry. "Do stop that nonsense. We are certainly not going home now."
His wife seemed to shrink into herself. Her pretty face, with its worried look, was like that of a little girl grieving over a doll. I felt a sudden desire to comfort her.
"I think you are worrying yourself unnecessarily, Mrs. Lester," I said in an undertone. We were sitting next each other, and I could speak to her without her husband overhearing. "When you telephoned the maid an hour ago, the baby was all right, wasn't she?"
"Yes, I know," she returned dejectedly. "But I have heard such dreadful things about maids neglecting babies left in their care. Suppose she should leave her alone in the apartment, and something should catch fire and—"
"See here, Daisy!" Lillian Gale joined our group, coffee cup in hand. "Drink your coffee and your cordial. Then pretty soon, if you feel you really must go, I'll gather up Harry and start for home. Then you can make Frank go."
"You are awfully good, Lillian." Mrs. Lester looked gratefully up at the older woman. "I know I am as silly as I can be, but you can't know how I am imagining every dreadful thing in the calendar."
"I know all about it," Mrs. Underwood returned shortly, almost curtly, and walked away toward the group of men at the other side of the apartment.
"I never knew that she ever had a child." Mrs. Lester's eyes were wide with amazement as they met mine.
"Neither did I." Purposely I made my tone non-committal. From the look in Lillian Gale's eyes when Mrs. Lester told us in my room of the way the baby looked asleep, I knew that some time she must have had a baby of her own in her arms.
But I detest gossip, no matter how kindly—if, indeed, gossip can ever be termed kindly. I could not discuss Mrs. Underwood's affairs with any one, especially when she was a guest of mine.
"But she must have had a baby some time," persisted little Mrs. Lester. Her anxiety about her own baby appeared to be forgotten for the moment. "It must have been a child of that awful man she divorced, or who divorced her. I never did get that story right."
I looked around the room. How I wished some one would interrupt our talk. I could not listen to Mrs. Lester's prattle without answering her, and I did not wish to express any opinion on the subject.
As if answering my unspoken wish, Harry Underwood rose and came toward me.
"Were you looking for me?" he queried audaciously.
I had a sudden helpless, angry feeling that this man had been covertly watching me. Annoyed as I was, I was glad that he had interrupted us, for his presence would effectually stop Mrs. Lester's surmises concerning his wife.
"Indeed I was not looking for you," I replied spiritedly. "But I am glad you are here. Please talk to Mrs. Lester while I go to the kitchen. I must give some directions to Katie."
"Of course that's a terribly hard task"—he began, smiling mischievously at Mrs. Lester.
But he never finished his sentence. A loud, prolonged ringing of the doorbell startled us all. It was the sort of ring one always associates with an urgent summons of some sort.
"Oh! my baby. I know something's happened to the baby and they've come to tell me."
Mrs. Lester's words rang high and shrill. They changed to a shriek asDicky opened the door and fell back startled.
For past him rushed a girl with a fear-distorted face holding in her arms a baby that to my eyes looked as if it were dead.
But I had presence of mind enough to quiet Mrs. Lester's hysterical fears.
"That is not your baby," I said sharply, grasping her by the arm. "It is the child from across the hall!"
There is nothing in the world so pitiful to witness as the suffering of a baby.
We all realized this as the maid held out to us the tiny infant, rigid and blue as if it were already dead.
"Is the baby dead?" she gasped, her face convulsed with grief and fear. "My madam is at the theatre, and the baby has been fretty for two hours, and just a minute ago he stiffened out like this. Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" she began to sob.
"Stop that!" Lillian Gale's voice rang out like a trumpet. "The baby is not dead. It is in a convulsion. Give it to me and run back to your apartment and bring me some warm blankets."
Of the six people at our little chafing dish supper, so suddenly interrupted, she was the only one who knew what to do. I had been able to, quiet Mrs. Lester's hysteria by telling her at once that the baby was not her own, as she had so widely imagined, but was helpless before the baby's danger.
Lillian's orders came thick and fast. She dominated the situation and swept us along in the fight to save the baby's life until the doctor, who had been summoned, arrived.
The physician was a tall, thin, young man, with a look of efficiency about him. He looked at the baby carefully, laid his hand upon the tiny forehead, then straightened himself.
"Is there any way in which the child's parents can be found?" Mr. Underwood evidently had told him of the nature of the seizure and the absence of the parents on the way up.
Lillian Gale's face grew pale under her rouge.
"There is danger, doctor?" she asked quietly
"There is always danger in these cases," he returned quietly, but his words were heard by a wild-eyed woman in evening dress who rushed through the open door followed by a man as agitated as she.
I said an unconscious prayer of thankfulness.
The baby's mother had arrived.
It seemed a week, but it was in reality only two hours later when Lillian Gale returned from the apartment across the hall, heavy eyed and dishevelled, her gown splashed with water, her rouge rubbed off in spots, her whole appearance most disreputable.
"The baby?" we all asked at once.
"Out of any immediate danger, the doctor says. The nurse came an hour ago, but the child had two more of those awful things, and I was able to help her. The mother is no good at all, one of those emotional women whose idea of taking care of a baby is to shriek over it."
Her voice held no contempt, only a great weariness. I felt a sudden rush of sympathetic liking for this woman, whom I had looked upon as an enemy.
"What can I get you, Mrs. Underwood?" I asked. "You look so worn out."
"If Katie has not thrown out that coffee," she returned practically, "let us warm it up."
I felt a foolish little thrill of housewifely pride. A few minutes before her appearance I had gone into the kitchen and made fresh coffee, anticipating her return. Katie, of course, I had sent to bed after she had cleared the table and washed the silver. I had told her to pile the dishes for the morning.
"I have fresh coffee all ready," I said. "I thought perhaps you might like a cup. Sit still, and I'll bring it in."
Harry Underwood sprang to his feet. "I'll carry the tray for you."
I thought I detected a little quiver of pain on Mrs. Underwood's face. Her husband had expressed no concern for her, but was offering to carry my tray. Truly, the tables were turning. I had suffered because of the rumors I had heard concerning this woman's regard for Dicky. Was I, not meaning it, to cause her annoyance?
"Indeed you will do no such thing," I spoke playfully to hide my real indignation at the man. "Dicky is the only accredited waiter around this house."
"Card from the waiters' union right in my pocket," Dicky grinned, and stretched lazily as he followed me to the kitchen.
We served the coffee, and Lillian and her husband went home. As the door closed behind them Dicky came over to me and took me in his arms.
"Pretty exciting evening, wasn't it, sweetheart?" he said. "I'm afraid you are all done out."
He drew me to our chair and we sat down together. I found myself crying, something I almost never do. Dicky smoothed my hair tenderly, silently, until I wiped my eyes. Then his clasp tightened around me.
"Tonight has taught me a lesson," he said. "Sometimes I have dreamed of a little child of our own, Madge. But I would rather never have a child than go through the suffering those poor devils had tonight. It must be awful to lose a baby."
I hid my face in his shoulder. Not even to my husband could I confess just then how the touch of the naked, rigid little body of that other woman's child had sent a thrill of longing through me for a baby's hands that should be mine.
"Well, we are in plenty of time."
We were seated, Dicky and I, in the waiting room of the Long Island railroad a week after my dinner party that had almost ended in tragedy. Dicky had bought our tickets to Marvin, the little village which was to be the starting point of our country ramble, and we were putting in the time before our train was ready in gazing at the usual morning scene in a railroad station.
There were not many passengers going out on the island, but scores of commuters were hurrying through the station on their way to their offices and other places of employment.
"You don't see many of the commuters up here," Dicky remarked. "There's a passage direct from the trains to the subway on the lower level, and most of them take that. Some of the women come up to prink a bit in the waiting room, and some of the men come through here to get cigars or papers, but the big crowd is down on the train level."
I hardly heard him, for I was so interested in a girl who had just come into the waiting room. I had never seen so self-possessed a creature in my life. She was unusually beautiful, with golden hair that was so real the most captious person could not suspect that hair of being dyed. Her eyes were dark, and the unusual combination of eyes and hair fitted a face with regular features and a fair skin. I had seen Christmas and Easter cards with faces like hers. But I had never seen anyone like her in real life, and I am afraid I stared at her as hard as did everyone else in the waiting room.
"By jove!" Dicky drew in a deep breath. "Isn't she the most ripping beauty you ever saw?"
His eyes were following her lithe, perfect figure as she walked down the waiting room. I have never seen a pretty girl appear so utterly unconscious of the glances directed toward her as she did. But with a woman's intuition I knew that underneath her calm exterior she was noticing and appraising every admiring look she received. I could not have told how I knew this, but I did know it.
She sat down a little distance from us, and Dicky frankly turned quite around to stare at her.
"I wonder if she's going on our train," he mused. "By George, I never saw anything like her in my life."
I looked at him in open amazement, tinged not a little with resentment. He was with me, his bride of less than a month, for our first day's outing since our marriage, and yet his eyes were following this other woman with the most open admiration. I felt hurt, neglected, but I was determined he should not think me jealous.
"Yes, isn't she beautiful," I said as enthusiastically as I could. "I never have seen just that combination of eyes and hair."
"It's her features and figure that get me. I'd like to get a glimpse of her hands and feet. Perhaps she will sit near us in the train. If she does, I promise you I am going to stare at her unmercifully."
As luck would have it, just as we seated ourselves in the train, the girl we had seen in the railway station came through the door with the same air of regal unconsciousness of her surroundings that she had shown while running the gauntlet of the admiring and critical eyes in the waiting room.
She carried in her hand a small traveling bag, which, while not new, had received such good care that it was not at all shabby. She spent no time in selecting a seat, but with an air of taking the first one available sat down directly opposite Dicky and me, depositing her bag close to her feet.
As she sat down she calmly crossed her knees, something which I hate to see a woman do in a public place.
"Gee, she has the hands and the feet all right!"
Dicky has a trick of mumbling beneath his breath, so that no one can detect that he is talking save the person whose ear is nearest to him. It is convenient sometimes, but at other times it is most embarrassing, especially when he is making comments upon people near us.
"I don't blame her for elevating one foot above the other," Dicky rattled on. "Not one woman in a thousand can wear those white spats. She must have mighty small, well-shaped tootsies under them."
The girl sat looking straight ahead of her. The crossing of her knees revealed a swirl of silken petticoat, and more than a glimpse of filmy silk stockings.
Her shoes were patent leather pumps, utterly unsuitable for a trip to the country. Over them she wore spats of the kind affected by so many girls.
I had a sudden remembrance of times in my own life when a new pair of shoes was as impossible to attain as a whole wardrobe. I had a sudden intuition that the unsuitable pumps were like the rest of her clothes, left over from some former affluence. She had bravely made the best of them by covering them with spats, which I knew she could obtain quite cheaply at some bargain sale.
"Looks like ready money, doesn't she?" mumbled Dicky in my ear.
I did not answer, and suddenly Dicky stared at me.
"A trifle peeved, aren't you?" Dicky's voice was mocking. But he saw what I could not conceal, that tears were rising to my eyes. I was able to keep from shedding them, and no one but Dicky could possibly have guessed I was agitated.
He changed his tone and manner on the instant.
"I know I have been thoughtless, sweetheart," he said earnestly, "but I keep forgetting that you are not used to my vagaries yet. Tell me honestly, would you have been so resentful if I had been interested in some old man with chin whiskers as I was in the beautiful lady?"
A light broke upon me. How foolish I had been. I looked at Dicky shamefacedly.
"You mean—"
"That she's exactly the model I've been looking for to pose for those outdoor illustrations Fillmore wants. One of the series is to be a girl on a step ladder, picking apple blossoms. She is to be on her knees, and one foot is to be stretched out behind her. The picture demands a perfect foot and ankle, and this girl has them. Her features and hair, too, are just the type I want. She would know how to pose, too. You can see that from her air as she sits there. And that's half the battle. If they do not have the faculty of posing naturally they could never be taught."
I felt much humiliated, and I was very angry, but I must remember, I told myself, that I had married an artist. I foresaw, however, many complications in our lives together. If every time we took a trip anywhere, Dicky was to spend his time planning to secure the services of some possible model I could see very little pleasure for me in our outings.
But I knew an apology was due Dicky, and I gathered courage to make it.
"I am sorry to have annoyed you, Dicky," I said at last. "But I did not dream that you were looking at her as a possible model."
"And looked at from any other standpoint it was rather raw of me," admitted Dicky. "But let's forget it. She'll probably drop off the train at Forest Hills or Kew Gardens, she looks like the product of those suburbs, and I'll never see her again."
But his prediction was not fulfilled.
"Marvin!"
The conductor shouted the word as the train drew up to one of the most forlorn looking railroad stations it was ever my lot to see.
Dicky and I rose from our seats, he with subdued excitement, I with a feeling of depression. For the girl who had claimed so much of our attention was getting off at Marvin after all.
I remembered the bargain I had made with my conscience.
"What do you know about that?" Dicky exclaimed, as he saw her go down the aisle ahead of us. "She also is getting off here. I wonder who she is?"
"Listen, Dicky," I said rapidly. "Walk ahead, see in which direction she goes, and ask the station master if he knows who she is. I know something which I will tell you when you have done that. Perhaps you may have her for a model, after all."
Dicky gave me one swift glance of mingled surprise and admiration, then did as I asked. As I followed him down the aisle and noted the eagerness with which he was hurrying, I felt a sudden qualm of doubt. Was I really doing the wisest thing?
I waited quietly on the station platform until Dicky rejoined me.
"Her name's Draper," he said. "The station agent doesn't know much about her, except that she visits a sister, Mrs. Gorman, here every summer. He never saw her here in the winter before. I got Mrs. Gorman's address, 329 Shore Road, called Shore Road because it never gets anywhere near the shore. Much good the address will do me, though. Queer she doesn't take the bus. It must be a mile to her sister's home. She's probably one of those walking bugs."
"She didn't take the bus because she could not afford it," I said quietly.
Dicky stared at me in amazement.
"How do you know?" he said finally. "Do you know her? No, of course you don't. But how in creation—"
"Listen, Dicky," I interrupted. "I've turned too many dresses of my own not to recognize makeshifts when I see them. Everything that girl has on except her stockings and gloves has been remodelled from her old stuff. Her pumps are not suitable at all for walking; they are evening pumps, of a style two years old at that. But she has covered them with spats, so that no one will suspect that she wears them from necessity, not choice."
"Well, I'll be—" Dicky uttered his favorite expletive. "It takes one woman to dissect another. She looked like the readiest kind of ready money to me. Why, say, if what you say is true, she ought to be glad to earn the money I could pay her for posing. I could get her lots of other work, too."
"Perhaps she wouldn't like to do that sort of thing."
"What sort of thing? What's wrong with it?" Dicky asked belligerently. "Oh, you mean figure posing! She wouldn't have to do that at all if she didn't want to. Plenty of good nudes. It's the intangible, high-bred look and ability to wear clothes well that's hard to get."
We had walked past the unpainted little shack that but for the word "Marvin" in large letters painted across one end of it would never have been taken for a railroad station. Without looking where we were going we found ourselves in front of an immense poster on a large board back of the station. The letters upon it were visible yards away.
"Marvin," it read, "the prettiest, quaintest village on the south shore. Please don't judge the town by the station."
He took my arm and turned me away from the billboard toward a wide, dusty road winding away from the station to the eastward.
"But, Dicky," I protested. "I thought you wanted to see about securing that girl as a model."
"Oh, that can wait," said Dicky carelessly.
My heart sang as I slipped my arm in Dicky's. It was going to be an enjoyable day after all.
"What's the matter, Madge? Got a grouch or something?"
Dicky faced me in the old hall of the deserted Putnam Manor Inn, where we had expected to find warmth and food and the picturesqueness of a century back. Instead of these things we had found the place in the hands of a caretaker. Dicky had asked to go through the house on the pretence of wishing to rent it.
"I haven't a bit of a grouch." I tried to speak as cheerfully as I could, for I dreaded Dicky's anger when I told him my feeling upon the subject of going over the house under false pretences. "But I don't think it is right for us to go through the rooms. The woman wouldn't have let us come in if you hadn't said we wished to rent it. It's deception, and I wish you wouldn't insist upon my going any further. I can't enjoy seeing the rooms at all."
Dicky stared at me for a moment as if I were some specimen of humanity he had never seen before. Then he exploded.
"Another one of your scruples, eh? By Jove, I wonder where you keep them all. You're always ready to trot one out just in time to spoil any little thing I'm trying to do for your pleasure or mine."
"Please hush, Dicky," I pleaded. I was afraid the woman in the next room would hear him, he spoke in such loud tones.
"I'll hush when I get good and ready." I longed to shake him, his tone and words were so much like those of a spoiled child. But he lowered his tone, nevertheless, and stood for a minute or two in sulky silence before the empty fireplace.
"Well! Come along," he said at last. "I'm sure there is no pleasure to me in looking over this place. I've seen it often enough when old Forsman had it filled with colonial junk, and served the best meals to be found on Long Island. It's like a coffin now to me. But I thought you might like to look it over, as you had never seen it. But for heaven's sake let us respect your scruples!"
I knew better than to make any answer. I wished above everything else to have this day end happily, this whole day to ourselves in the country, upon which I had counted so much. I feared Dicky would be angry enough to return to the city, as he had threatened to do when he found the inn closed. So it was with much relief that after we had gone back into the other room I heard him ask the caretaker if there were some place in the neighborhood where we could obtain a meal.
"Do you know where the Shakespeare House is?" she asked.
"Never heard of it," Dicky answered, "although I've been around here quite a bit, too."
"It's about six blocks further down toward the bay," she said, still in the same colorless tone she had used from the first. "It's on Shore Road. The Germans own it. Mr. Gorman, he's a builder, and he built an old house over into a copy of Shakespeare's house in England. Mrs. Gorman is English. She serves tea there on the porch in the summer, and I've heard she will serve a meal to anybody that happens along any time of the year, although she doesn't keep a regular restaurant. That's the only place I know of anywhere near. Of course, down on the bay there's the Marvin Harbor Hotel. You can get a pretty good meal there."
"Thank you very much," said Dicky, laying a dollar bill down on the table near us.
I had a sudden flash of understanding. Dicky meant all the time to recompense the woman in this way for allowing us to see the house. But the principle of the thing remained the same. Why could he not have told her frankly that he wished to look at the house and given her the dollar in the beginning?
I did not ask the question, however, even after we had left the old mansion and were walking down the road. I felt like adopting the old motto and leaving well enough alone.
I did not speak again until we had turned from the street down which we were walking into a winding thoroughfare labelled "Shore Road." Then a thought which had come to me during our walk demanded utterance.
"Dicky," I said quietly, "wasn't Gorman the name of the woman of whom the station master told you, and didn't she live on Shore Road?"
Dicky stopped short as if he had been struck.
"Of course it was," he almost shouted. "What a ninny I was not to remember it. She's the sister of that stunning girl we saw in the train. Isn't this luck? I may be able to get that girl to pose for me after all."
But I did not echo his sentiments. Secretly I hoped the girl would not be at her sister's home.
"This surely must be the place, Dicky," I said as we rounded a sudden turn on Shore Road and caught sight of a quaint structure that seemed to belong to the 16th century rather than the 20th.
Dicky whistled. "Well! What do you want to know about that?" he demanded of the horizon in general, for the little brown house with its balconies projecting from unexpected places and its lattice work cunningly outlined against its walls was well worth looking at. But our hunger soon drove us through the gate and up the steps.
A comely Englishwoman of about 40 years answered Dicky's sounding of the quaintly carved knocker. He lifted his hat with a curtly bow.
"We were told at Putnam Manor that we might be able to get dinner here," he began. "We came down from the city this morning expecting that the inn would be open. But we found it closed and we are very hungry. Would it be possible for you to accommodate us?"
"I think we shall be able to give you a fairly good dinner," she said with a simple directness that pleased me. "My husband went fishing yesterday and I have some very good pan fish and some oysters. If you are very hungry I can give you the oysters almost at once, and it will not take very long to broil the fish. Then, if you care for anything like that, we had an old-fashioned chicken pie for our own dinner. There is plenty of it still hot if you wish to try it."
"Madam," Dicky bowed again, "Chicken pie is our long suit, and we are also very fond of oysters and fish. Just bring us everything you happen to have in the house and I can assure you we will do full justice to it."
She smiled and went to the foot of the staircase, which had a mahogany stair rail carved exquisitely.
"Grace," she called melodiously. "There are two people here who will take dinner. Will you show them into my room, so they can lay aside their wraps?"
Without waiting for an answer, she motioned us to the staircase.
"My sister will take care of you," she said, and hurried out of another door, which we realized must lead to the kitchen.
Dicky and I looked at each other when she had left us.
"The beautiful unknown," Dicky said in a stage whisper. "Try to get on the good side of her, Madge. If I can get her to pose for that set of outdoor illustrations Fillmore wants, me fortune's made, and hers, too," he burlesqued.
I nudged him to stop talking. I have a very quick ear, and I had heard a light footstep in the hall above us. As we reached the top of the stairs the girl of whom we were talking met us.
I acknowledged unwillingly to myself that she was even more beautiful than she had appeared on the train. She was gowned in a white linen skirt and white "middy," with white tennis shoes and white stockings. Her dress was most unsuitable for the winter day, although the house was warm, but with another flash of remembrance of my own past privations, I realized the reason for her attire. This costume could be tubbed and ironed if it became soiled. It would stand a good deal of water. Her other clothing must be kept in good condition for the times when she must go outside of her home.
But if she had known of Dicky's mission and gowned herself accordingly she could not have succeeded better in satisfying his artistic eye. He stared at her open-mouthed as she spoke a conventional word of greeting and showed us into a bedroom hung with chintzes and bright with the winter sunshine.
She was as calm, as unconsciously regal, as she had been on the train. I knew, however, that she was not as indifferent to Dicky's open admiration as she appeared. The slightest heightening of the color in her cheek, a quickly-veiled flash of her eyes in his direction—these things I noticed in the short time she was in the room with us.
Was Dicky too absorbed in his plan or his drawings to see what I had seen? His words appeared to indicate that he was.
"Gee!" He drew a long breath as we heard Miss Draper—the name I had heard the 'bus driver give her—going down the stairs. "If I get a chance to talk to her today I'm going to make her promise to save that rig to pose in. She's the exact image of what I want. And graceful! 'Grace by name and grace by nature.' The old saw certainly holds good in her case."
I did not answer him. As I laid aside my furs and removed my hat and coat I felt a distinct sinking of the heart. I knew it was foolish, but the presence of this girl in whom Dicky displayed such interest took all the pleasure out of the day's outing.
"This is what I call eating," said Dicky as he helped himself to a second portion of the steaming chicken pie which Mrs. Gorman had placed before us. The oysters and the delicious broiled fish which had formed the first two courses of our dinner had been removed by her sister a few moments before.
Dicky had not been so absorbed in his meal, however, as to miss any graceful movement of Miss Draper's. The admiring glances which he gave her as she served us with quick, deft motions were not lost upon me. I knew that she was not oblivious of them either, although her manner was perfect in its calm, indifferent courtesy.
When it came time for dessert Mrs. Gorman bore the tray in on which it was served, a cherry roly-poly, covered with a steaming sauce.
"You're in luck," she said with a naive pride in her own culinary ability, as she served the pudding. "I don't often make this pudding, and my canned cherries from last summer are getting scarce. But my sister came home unexpectedly this morning, and this pudding is one of her favorites. So I made it for dinner. I thought perhaps it would cheer her up."
Miss Draper who entered at that moment with the coffee and a bit of English cheese that looked particularly appetizing, appeared distinctly annoyed at her sister's reference to her. Her cheeks flushed, and her eyes flashed a warning glance at Mrs. Gorman.
"I am sure this pudding would cheer anybody up," said Dicky genially, attacking his.
"It is delicious," I said, and, indeed, it was. "I have tasted nothing like this since I was a child in the country."
Mrs. Gorman beamed at the praise. She evidently was a hospitable soul.
"Would you like the recipe for it?" she asked.
"Indeed she would," Dicky struck in. "If you can teach Katie to make this," he turned to me, "I'll stand treat to anything you wish."
"What a rash promise," I smiled at Dicky, then turned to Mrs. Gorman."I should be very glad to have the recipe," I said.
"Here," Dicky passed a pencil and the back of an envelope over the table.
So, while Mrs. Gorman dictated the recipe, I dutifully wrote it down.
"Thank you so much, Mrs. Gorman," I said as I finished writing.
"You are very welcome, I am sure," she said heartily. "You are strangers here, aren't you? I've never seen you around here before."
"This is my wife's first visit to this village," Dicky struck into the conversation. I realized that he welcomed this opportunity of beginning a conversation with Mrs. Gorman and her sister, so that he might lead up to his request for Miss Draper's services as a model.
"I have been in the village frequently," went on Dicky. "I used to sketch a good deal along the brook to the north of the village."
"Then you are an artist!" We heard Miss Draper's voice for the first time since she had shown us to the room above. Then her tones had been cool and indifferent. Now her exclamation was full of emotion of some sort.
"An artist!" echoed Mrs. Gorman, staring at Dicky as if he were thePresident.
There was a little strained silence, then Miss Draper picked up the serving tray and hurried into the kitchen. Mrs. Gorman wiped her eyes as she saw her sister's departure.
"You mustn't think we're queer," she said at length. "But I suppose your saying you are an artist brought all her trouble back to Grace, poor girl." Mrs. Gorman's eyes threatened to overflow again.
"If it wouldn't trouble you too much, tell us about it." Dicky's voice was gentle, inviting. "Perhaps we could help you."
"I don't think anybody can help." Mrs. Gorman shook her head sadly. "You see, ever since Grace was a baby, almost, she has wanted to draw things. I brought her up. I was the oldest and she the youngest of 12 children, and our mother died soon after she was born. I was married shortly afterward, and from the time she could hold a pencil in her hand she has drawn pictures on everything she could lay her hands on. In school she was always at the head of her class in drawing, but there was no money to give her any lessons, so she didn't get very far. Since she left school she has been planning every way to save money enough to go to an art school, but something always hinders."
Mrs. Gorman paused only to take breath. Having broken her reserve she seemed unable to stop talking.
"She went into a dressmaking shop as soon as she left school—I had taught her to sew beautifully—thinking she could earn money enough when she had learned her trade to have a term in an art school. But her health broke down at the sewing, and I had her home here a year."
I remembered the remarkable appearance of costly attire Miss Draper had achieved when we saw her in the station. This, then, was the solution. She had made them all herself.
"Then she got another position—"
Miss Draper came into the room in time to hear Mrs. Gorman's last words. She walked swiftly to her sister's side, her eyes blazing.
"Kate," she said, her voice low but tense with emotion. "Why are you troubling these strangers with my affairs?"
Before Mrs. Gorman could answer Dicky interposed.
"Just a minute, please," he said authoritatively. "As it happens, Miss Draper, I am in a position to make a proposition to you concerning employment which will provide you with a comfortable income, and at the same time enable you to pursue your studies."
Mrs. Gorman uttered an ejaculation of joy, but Miss Draper said nothing, only looked steadily at him. "This girl has had lessons in a hard school," I said to myself. "She has learned to distrust men and to doubt any proffered kindness."
"I have been commissioned to do a set of illustrations," Dicky went on, "in which the central figure is a young girl in the regulation summer costume, such as you have on. I have been unable to find a satisfactory model for the picture. If you will allow me to say so, you are just the type I wish for the drawings. If you will pose for them I will give you $50 and buy you a monthly commutation ticket from Marvin, so that you will have no expense coming or going. There are several artist friends of mine who have been looking for a model of your type. I think you could safely count upon an income of $40 or $50 a week after you get started. I know there are several other drawings I have in mind in which I could use you."
Mrs. Gorman had attempted to speak two or three times while Dicky was explaining his proposition, but Miss Draper had silenced her with a gesture. Now, however, she would not be denied. "A model!" she shrilled excitedly. "You're not insulting my sister by asking her to be a model, are you? Why, I'd rather see her dead than have her do anything so shameful—"
"Kate, keep quiet. You do not know what you are talking about." Miss Draper's voice was low and calm, but it quieted her older sister immediately.
"I take it you do not mean—figure posing." She hesitated before the word ever so slightly.
"Oh, no, nothing of the kind," I hastened to reassure her. "It's the ability to wear clothes well with a certain air, that he especially wants."
"And what do you mean by an opportunity to go on with my studies?"
The girl was really superb as she faced Dicky. With the prospect of more money than I knew she had ever had before, she yet could stand and bargain for the thing which to her was far more than money.
"Show me some of your drawings," Dicky spoke abruptly.
She went swiftly upstairs, returning in a moment with two large portfolios. These she spread out before Dicky on the table, and he examined the drawings very carefully.
I felt very much alone; out of it. For all Dicky noticed, I might not have been there.
"Not bad at all," was Dicky's verdict. "Indeed, some of them are distinctly good. Now I'll tell you what I will do," he said, turning to Miss Draper. "Until you find out what time you can give to an art school, I will give you what little help I can in your work. If you can be quiet, and I think you can, you may work in my studio at odd times, when you are not posing. What do you think of it?"
"Think of it?" Miss Draper drew a long breath. "I accept your offer gladly. When shall I begin?"
"I will drop you a postal, notifying you a day or two ahead of time," he returned.
We went out of the house and down the path to the gate before Dicky spoke.
"That was awfully decent of you, Madge, to square things with Mrs.Gorman like that. I appreciate it, I assure you."
"It was nothing," I said dispiritedly. I felt suddenly tired and old."But I wish you would do something for me, Dicky."
"Name it, and it is yours," Dicky spoke grandiloquently.
"Take me home. We can see the harbor another time. I really feel too tired to do any more today."
Dicky opened his mouth, evidently to remind me that my fatigue was of sudden development, but closed it again, and turned in silence toward the railroad station.
We had a silent journey back. Neither Dicky nor I spoke, except to exchange the veriest commonplaces. We reached home about 5 o'clock to Katie's surprise.
"I'll hurry, get dinner," she said, evidently much flurried.
"We're not very hungry, Katie," I said. "Some cold meat and bread and butter, those little potato cakes you make so nicely, some sliced bananas for Mr. Graham and some coffee—that will be sufficient."
For my own part I felt that I never wished to see or hear of food again. The silent journey home, added to the events of the day, had brought on one of my ugly morbid moods.
"Bad news, Dicky?"
We were seated at the breakfast table, Dicky and I, the morning after our trip to Marvin, from which I had returned weary of body and sick of mind. Tacitly we had avoided all discussion of Grace Draper, the beautiful girl Dicky had discovered there and engaged as a model for his drawings, promising to help her with her art studies. But because of my feeling toward Dicky's plans breakfast had been a formal affair.
Then had come a special delivery letter for Dicky. He had read it twice, and was turning back for a third perusal when my query made him raise his eyes.
"In a way, yes," he said slowly. Then after a pause. "Read it." He held out the letter.
It was postmarked Detroit. The writing reminded me of my mother; it was the hand of a woman of the older generation.
I, too, read the letter twice before making any comment upon it. I wondered if Dicky's second reading had been for the same purpose as mine—to gain time to think.
I was stunned by the letter. I had never contemplated the possibility of Dicky's mother living with us, and here she was calmly inviting herself to make her home with us. For years she had made her home with her childless daughter and namesake, Harriet, whose husband was one of the most brilliant surgeons of the middle West.
I knew that Dicky's mother and sister had spoiled him terribly when they all had a home together before Dicky's father died. The first thought that came to me was that Dicky's whims alone were hard enough to humor, but when I had both him and his mother to consider our home life would hardly be worth the living.
I knew and resented also the fact that Dicky's mother and sisters disapproved of his marriage to me. In one of Dicky's careless confidences I had gleaned that his mother's choice for him had been made long ago, and that he had disappointed her by not marrying a friend of his sister.
I felt as if I were in a trap. To have to live and treat with daughterly deference a woman who I knew so disliked me that she refused to attend her son's wedding was unthinkable.
"Well!"
In Dicky's voice was a note of doubt as he held out his hand for his mother's letter. I knew that he was anxiously awaiting my decision as to the proposition it contained, and I hastened to reassure him.
"Of course there is but one thing to be done," I said, trying hard to make my tone cordial.
"And that is?" Dicky looked at me curiously. Was it possible that he did not understand my meaning?
"Why, you must wire her at once to come to us. Be sure you tell her that she will be most welcome."
I felt a trifle ashamed that the welcoming words were such a sham from my lips. Dicky's mother was distinctly not welcome as far as I was concerned. But my thoughts flew swiftly back to my own little mother, gone forever from me. Suppose she were the one who needed a home? How would I like to have Dicky's secret thoughts about her welcome the same as mine were now?
"That's awfully good of you, Madge." Dicky's voice brought me back from my reverie. "Of course I know you are not particularly keen about her coming. That wouldn't be natural, but it's bully of you to pretend just the same."
I opened my mouth to protest, and then thought better of it. There was no use trying to deceive Dicky. If he was satisfied with my attitude toward his mother, that was all that was necessary.
I poured myself another cup of coffee, when Dicky had gone to the studio, drank it mechanically, and touched the bell for Katie to clear away the breakfast things.
I did not try to disguise to myself the fact that I was extremely miserable. The day at Marvin, on which I had so counted, had been a disappointment to me on account of the attention Dicky had paid to Miss Draper. I reflected bitterly that I might just as well have spent the afternoon with Mrs. Smith of the Lotus Club, discussing the history course which she wished me to undertake for the club.
The thought of Mrs. Smith reminded me of the promise I had made her when leaving for Marvin that I would call her up on my return and tell her when I could meet her. I resolved to telephone her at once.
I felt a thrill of purely feminine triumph as I turned away from the telephone. I knew that Mrs. Smith would have declined to see me if she had consulted only her inclinations. That she still wished me to take up the leadership of the study course gratified me exceedingly, and made me thank my stars for the long years of study and teaching which had given me something of a reputation in the work which the Lotus Club wished me to undertake.
But when we met at a little luncheon room, Mrs. Smith and I managed to get through the preliminaries pleasantly.
"Now as to compensation," she said briskly. "I am authorized to offer you $20 per lecture. I know that it is not what you might get from an older or richer club, but it is all we can offer."
I was silent for a moment. I did not wish her to know how delighted I was with the amount of money offered.
"I think that will be satisfactory for this season, at least," I said at last.
"Very well, then. The first meeting, of course, will be merely an introduction and an outlining of your plan of study, so I will not need to trouble you again. If you will be at the clubrooms at half after one the first day, I will meet you, and see that you get started all right. Here comes our luncheon. Now I can eat in peace."
Her whole manner said: "Now I am through with you."
But I felt that I cared as little for her opinion of me as she evidently did of mine for her.
Twenty dollars a week was worth a little sacrifice.
Lillian Underwood's raucous voice came to my ears as I rang the bell of my little apartment. It stopped suddenly at the sound of the bell. Dicky opened the door and Mrs. Underwood greeted me boisterously.
"I came over to ask you to eat dinner with us Sunday," she said. "Then we'll think up something to do in the afternoon and evening. We always dine Sunday at 2 o'clock, a concession to that cook of mine. I'll never get another like her, and if she only knew it I would have Sunday dinner at 10 o'clock in the morning rather than lose her. I do hope you can come."
"There's nothing in the world to hinder as far as I know," said Dicky.
"I am so sorry," I turned to Lillian as I spoke. My dismay was genuine, for I knew how Dicky would view my answer. "But I could not possibly come on Sunday. I have a dinner engagement for that day which I cannot break."
"A dinner engagement!" Dicky ejaculated at last. "Why, Madge, you must be mistaken. We haven't any dinner engagement for that day."
"You haven't any," I tried to speak as calmly as I could. "There is no reason why you cannot accept Mrs. Underwood's invitation if you wish. But do you remember the letter I received a week ago saying an old friend of mine whom I had not seen for a year would reach the city next Sunday and wished an engagement for dinner? There is no way in which I can postpone or get out of the engagement, for there is no way I can reach my friend before Sunday."
I had purposely avoided using the words "he" or "him," hoping that Dicky would not say anything to betray the identity of the "friend" who was returning from the wilds. But I reckoned without Dicky. Either he was so angry that he recklessly disregarded Mrs. Underwood's presence or else his friendship with her was so close that it did not matter to him whether or not she knew of our differences.
"Oh, the gorilla with the mumps!" Dicky gave the short, scornful, little laugh which I had learned to dread as one of the preliminaries of a scene. "I had forgotten all about him. And so he really arrives on Sunday, and you expect to welcome him. How very touching!"
Dicky was fast working himself into a rage. Lillian Gale evidently knew the signs as well as I did, for she hurriedly began to fasten her cloak, which she had opened on account of the heat of the room.
"I really must be going," she murmured, starting for the door, butDicky adroitly slipped between it and her.
"Talk about your romance, Lil," he sneered, "what do you think about this one for a best seller?"
"Oh, Dicky!" I gasped, my cheeks scarlet with humiliation at this scene before Mrs. Underwood, of all people. But Dicky paid no more attention to me than if I had been the chair in which I was sitting.