They were all having dinner together in a restaurant. In the circumstances, Miss Torrance could not well refuse, especially as it was Mr. Martin’s one night on shore; but she was not happy. Every one else was happy, but not she.
As a rule, she strong-mindedly concealed her feelings, but to-night she didn’t. She allowed Mr. Robertson to see just how miserable she was. Olive and Mr. Martin might have seen this, too, if they had looked at her.
“It looks as if there was a new story beginning there,” observed Mr. Robertson. “Might be called ‘Mr. Martin Swallows the Anchor.’”
Miss Torrance refused to smile.
“I shall miss Olive so,” she said, in a not very steady voice, “if she—”
“I’m sure you would,” agreed Mr. Robertson; “but she couldn’t find a better fellow than young Martin. I’ve known him all his life, and—”
“Yes, I know,” said Miss Torrance; “but I shall be lonely—oh, so lonely!”
It turned out, however, that she was not destined to be lonely.[Pg 192]
MUNSEY’SMAGAZINE
JANUARY, 1925Vol. LXXXIIINUMBER 4
[Pg 193]
By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
YOUNG MANDEVILLE RYDER entered the employment bureau with extreme reluctance. Indeed, when he opened the door and saw so many women in there, and heard so many feminine voices, he would have backed out again, only that he was too young to dare to run away.
He was twenty-five—the age of pig-headed valor. He had undertaken to do this thing, and he meant to do it. Instinct warned him to flee, but he paid no heed. Hat in hand, he advanced to the desk and somewhat vaguely made known his wants.
It was a question of engaging a companion for his sister, who was a nervous wreck. His brother-in-law had implored him to do this.
“B-because,” Sheila’s husband said, “if I find any one—well, Mandy, you know what she’ll probably say.”
Mandeville did know. He had taken pity upon his luckless brother-in-law, and had agreed to go and pick out a companion for Sheila; so here he was.
The young woman in charge of the bureau listened to him with courteous inattention. She had long ago ceased to trouble with any one’s detailed requirements. She knew that both employers and employees wanted and demanded things that never existed in this world, and that in the end they would take what they could get and be more or less satisfied.
She was, however, rather favorably impressed by this client. Not only was he more than six feet tall, extraordinarily good-looking, and extremely well dressed, but he had an air about him—a superb sort of nonchalance, which she saw through at once, and which she recognized as merely a disguise for an honest, candid, and endearingly youthful spirit; so she decided not to inflict Miss Mullins upon him. Miss Mullins had been registered for six weeks, and, considering her temperament and personal appearance, she needed every possible chance.
“No!” thought the young woman in charge. “I’ll let him see Miss Twill.”
Smiling pleasantly, she led Mandeville into a room where four women were already established, talking, two in each corner, in low tones, and eying each other with quick, terribly penetrating glances. A prominent clubwoman was interviewing a poor little secretary, and a mild, home-keeping lady was being interviewed by a stern and handsome English governess.
Young Mandeville had to sit either on a very low wicker rocking-chair, or on a settee. He tried the rocking-chair first, but it brought his knees up to his chin, so he had to take the settee, and this caused him considerable anxiety; for suppose—
Well, it happened. Miss Twill, brought in and presented to him, did sit down on the settee beside him. She was a cheery soul. All her unimpeachable references mentioned her “cheerful disposition.” She really had no perceptible faults at all, but she wouldn’t do.
Young Mandeville was absolutely incapable of telling her this to her cheerful face, and their conversation had trailed into an awful succession of one “well” after another, when the intelligent manageress of the bureau saved him. She sent him another prospective companion to be interviewed, another and yet another, and none of them would do.
Mandeville suffered exceedingly. He wished that he could give the discouraged, pinched little old one a present—a dozen pairs of gloves, for instance. He wished that he could invite the pert, pretty young one out to lunch. He was sorry for all of[Pg 194]them, and he felt like a brute; but he knew what he wanted, and these would not do. There he sat, like a caliph in his divan, pronouncing judgment upon these poor, anxious creatures, and waiting, without much hope, for the right one.
He had a clear idea of the right one. He had met her—in novels and in the theater—a tall, grave, lovely young woman, exquisitely well bred, dignified, and yet subtly pathetic; the sort of companion who can stand about and converse with diplomats. Not that his sister ever entertained diplomats, but that was the type.
The manageress was becoming a little severe. It was dawning upon her that this client was not so manageable as he looked. After he had seen and—with great mental suffering—rejected six companions, she decided to make an end of him.
The room was temporarily empty of all but Mandeville when she returned with the seventh applicant.
“Miss La Chêne!” said she, and, saying, vanished.
Miss La Chêne did not sit beside Mandeville on the settee—not she! She took the low rocking-chair opposite him, crossed her feet modestly, clasped her little white-gloved hands in her lap, and raised her eyes to his face. Enormous, soft black eyes they were, set in a dark, lovely, pointed face. She was dressed with an innocent sort of elegance, in a dark suit and a small, close-fitting hat. She had about her such an air of propriety, something so decorous and demure and delightful, that Mandeville couldn’t repress a smile. She smiled, too, and dropped her eyes.
He didn’t know how to begin. This charming little thing was nothing but a child, a kid.
“Er—” he said, in his vague, grand manner. “Er—I don’t imagine you’ve had much experience as a—er—a companion.”
“None!” said she, almost with vehemence. “None at all; but I speak French just as I do English, I can sew, I can read aloud, I can play the piano. I have good personal references from people in Quebec, and I have a diploma from the convent.”
In hot haste she opened her hand bag, brought out some letters, and handed them to the young man. Somehow he didn’t care to read them. Somehow this interview lacked a businesslike tone. No—he couldn’t read the poor little thing’s letters!
She was watching him anxiously.
“I’ll try very hard, if some one will only give me a chance!” said she.
Poor little thing! Such a sweet, well bred little voice!
“I know,” said Mandeville earnestly; “but—you see, my sister wants—”
For instinct warned him that this delightful creature would not do.
“You see—” he went on, but stopped short, because the poor little thing’s black eyes filled with tears.
“I’m only eighteen,” she said, “and all alone in the world.”
This was more than he could endure. He was silent for a moment, trying honestly to weigh the merits of the case. She was obviously well bred, she spoke French, she could sew, she could read aloud, she could play the piano; but all these qualifications became confused in his mind with the quite irrelevant facts that she was only eighteen and all alone in the world, and that she had those extraordinary, those marvelous eyes.
“I’ll take you to see my sister,” he said, at last, for he thought that his sister could not fail to be touched by so much youth, beauty, and innocence.
Sheila Robinson, the nervous wreck, lay on a couch in her boudoir, and from time to time she wept. She was a handsome woman, a fine woman, tall, regally formed, with long, languid blue eyes and a superb crown of red hair. She was not unaware of her natural advantages, yet compliments almost always made her weep.
“If you could have seen me before I married Lucian Robinson!” was what she usually said.
She had just said this now, to Miss La Chêne, and Miss La Chêne had answered instantly:
“Oh, any one couldseehow much you’ve suffered!”
Considering the age and inexperience of the girl, this reply showed talent; but what had the poor little thing, only eighteen and all alone in the world, to depend upon except her own native wit? She had made a determined effort to please Sheila Robinson, and she had succeeded at the very first interview. Mrs. Robinson had been much gratified by her wide-eyed interest and fervent sympathy.
For a whole week Miss La Chêne had not failed once. She had been earnestly attentive, obliging, polite, and amusing.[Pg 195]She had been, without complaint, a servant in the morning, a dear and intimate friend in the afternoon, and completely forgotten in the evening. Everything had gone very nicely indeed.
But a week of calm was about as much as Mrs. Robinson’s nerves could endure. Her husband was away on a business trip, and his daily letters upset her horribly. She could, she assured Miss La Chêne, read between the lines. She was wonderfully clever about this, though she modestly said that it was all intuition.
For instance, if a letter was dated the 12th, this remarkable woman knew at once that it had really been written on the 5th, and given to some complaisant friend to mail. If Lucian said that business was bad, it was because he wished to lavish his money elsewhere. If he said that business was good, it was because he was disgracefully happy.
Altogether Mrs. Robinson was so barbarously ill-used and deceived by her husband that she no longer cared what happened to her. The hotel suite which she occupied became the scene of a lamentable martyrdom. She trifled with her life. When she lay in bed, she observed to Miss La Chêne that the doctor had positively ordered her to go out and divert her mind. When she passed a hectic day away from home, she would frequently remind Miss La Chêne, with a brave, scornful smile, that the doctor had forbidden any excitement. Every meal, every cup of coffee, every cigarette, was a reckless defiance of the doctor’s orders; but, as she said, what did it all matter? Perhaps it would be better if she were dead, and the heartless Lucian free to marry again.
“If I shouldnot be herewhen he comes back,” she said to Miss La Chêne, in a low, thrilling voice, “tell him that I forgive—everything!”
Nevertheless, it seemed that she wished to know definitely what there was to be forgiven, for on this particular morning she said she had a “strange, psychic feeling that something was wrong,” and she desired to verify the suspicion. She read her husband’s letter over and over.
“My dear!” she said, with dangerous calmness. “He says he is at a hotel in Washington, but I do not believe him! Something tells me he is not in Washington at all!”
Miss La Chêne looked appalled.
“Please,” Mrs. Robinson went on, “get the hotel on the long distance for me, my dear. I must know!”
This the willing companion did. Mrs. Robinson took up the receiver and requested to speak to Mr. Robinson. There was a pause. Then a pleasant feminine voice answered her:
“Mr. Robinson is out, but this is Mrs. Robinson speaking. May I—”
It was terrible! In vain did Miss La Chêne point out that Robinson was not a very unusual name, and that there might well be a Mrs. Robinson in that hotel totally unknown to Mr. Lucian Robinson.
“Don’t go on!” cried Mrs. Robinson. “I knew it—I knew it all the time! My heart told me!”
She began at once to prepare for her departure. In every crisis she was wont to fly to some one who could “understand,” and it was now the turn of her sister, Mrs. Milner, to perform this office for her. She was going away. She cared not where she went, in her anguish, but she thought that Miss La Chêne might as well buy her a ticket for Greenwich and look up a train and order a taxi.
“I must go at once,” she said, “while I have the strength. My dear, do I look too terrible?”
“Well,” replied Miss La Chêne, “of course, any one could see how much you were suffering.”
Mrs. Robinson cast a glance at the mirror. With her handsome face pale with grief and Rachel powder, her eyes somber with pain and mascara, her regal form dressed all in black, she did indeed look tragic.
“What does it all matter?” she demanded. “You’ll stay here and look after the packing, won’t you, my dear? And my jewels—” This was too much for her. “My jewels!” she said wildly. “Almost all of them were given to me by him, in those days when he still loved me. Take them away! Never let me see them again—never! But be sure to get a receipt from the safe-deposit, my dearest child, and remember that the bank closes at three o’clock.”
She gave the jewel case to Miss La Chêne and turned with a shudder, covering her eyes with her hand.
“Take the five o’clock train, my dear,” she said. “I’ll see that you’re met at the station. Good-by! Good-by![Pg 196]”
“Au revoir!” said Miss La Chêne, with fervor.
Directly she was left alone, Miss La Chêne, with remarkable skill and energy, set about the business of packing. She did the job well—as, indeed, she did almost everything she undertook.
In a way she enjoyed the task, but in another way it was unspeakably painful. She adored handling these satin, silk, lace, chiffon, batiste, and georgette garments of Mrs. Robinson’s, these perfumes, powders, rouges, creams, and lotions, these hats, shoes, slippers, gloves, and scarfs. She could thoroughly appreciate the somewhat flamboyant tastes of the unhappy lady; but oh, how she coveted! Actually tears came into her eyes—tears of fearful envy.
She was an honest and sturdy little soul, however, and she tried to console herself with the reflection that, if she continued to be honest, industrious, and virtuous, she might some day have all that Mrs. Robinson had, and more. Even in boarding school she had known that she was going to marry a millionaire, and now she was so situated that she might meet one at almost any minute. Who could tell what might not happen at the house of this sister in Greenwich?
So she did her work; and when it was done, and the trunks had gone off, she sat down to rest for a little. It was at this minute, when her busy little hands were idle, that temptation assailed her. She wondered what Mrs. Robinson had in her jewel case. She discovered that the key was in the lock. She did not see what harm it could possibly do just to look at the jewels; and then she did not see what harm it could possibly do just to try on a few of them.
She tucked in her blouse, so as to leave her slender neck and shoulders bare. She took the net off her smooth, neat coiffure, and produced a fascinating effect of wildness by a few deft touches. Cosmetics she needed not, for her eyes were starry, her cheeks flushed with delight. She slipped two or three rings on her fingers and a broad gold bracelet on one childish arm. She put on a long rope of pearls, and clasped about her throat a short necklace of emeralds.
Then she found a jeweled butterfly, the use of which she didn’t comprehend, but she fastened it in her hair, just above her eyebrows; and she stared and stared at her image in the mirror, enthralled by the magical glimmer of the jewels. She was altogether the most amazingly lovely little creature, and the man standing in the doorway behind her was very properly overwhelmed. He never forgot that first glimpse of Miss La Chêne.
“I—I—I—” he stammered.
She spun around, as white as a ghost. He was a slender, well dressed man, with a thin, harassed face, pleasant brown eyes, and hair a little gray. He was greatly embarrassed, and she was terrified; and that made conversation difficult.
Miss La Chêne was the first to recover.
“Who are you?” she demanded in a small, defiant voice.
“I?” said he, surprised. “B-but the thing is, who areyou? I’m Robinson.”
Impossible! This mild and nervous gentleman the heartless brute who had ruined Mrs. Robinson’s life, shattered her illusions, and made her the nervous wreck she was? And yet, looking at him, Miss La Chêne could not doubt him. He seemed authentic.
“I’m Mrs. Robinson’s companion,” she said. “I—she—”
Then, so abashed was she, so humiliated at being caught thus, bedecked in Mrs. Robinson’s jewels, that she began to cry. She would not admit that she was crying, however. With great tears rolling down her cheeks and her lashes like wet rays, she explained, in a formal tone, that Mrs. Robinson had left her behind to pack, and that she had just tried on the—the jewels.
“W-well, what of it?” he said cheerfully. “Th-there’s no harm done. See here! Please don’t cry! Why shouldn’t you t-try on the things? Very natural!” He paused. “And very becoming,” he added, with a singularly nice sort of smile.
She liked him. He was kind and courteous, and he evidently admired her. When he asked where his wife had gone, Miss La Chêne found that she was sorry for him. He was so innocent, so absolutely unaware of his latest crime. He said that he had “popped in to surprise her.”
For an instant the tactful and zealous companion was at a loss. She was not very old and not very experienced, and this seemed to be rather a delicate matter; but she was a warm-hearted little thing, and pretty sharp-witted, and she was convinced now that Mr. Robinson was an old darling,[Pg 197]and badly misunderstood. So she told him the truth, in the most tactful way she could.
“B-but, good Lord!” cried the unfortunate man. “There might be t-ten Robinsons in a b-big hotel!”
“I know,” Miss La Chêne agreed. “I said that to Mrs. Robinson, but you know how—sensitive and high-strung she is.”
“Yes,” he said ruefully. “Yes, she is.” He sighed. “Well!” he said, and sighed again.
Miss La Chêne took advantage of his abstraction to retire to another room, to take off her borrowed ornaments, and to restore her costume to its usual demure neatness. When she came back with the jewels in her hand, to restore them to the case, she found Mr. Robinson sitting in a chair, staring before him, profoundly dejected. The only thought that entered her kind little heart was a very admirable and very feminine desire to cheer and comfort this unhappy man.
“Wouldn’t you like a cup of tea, Mr. Robinson?” she asked.
“Why, yes, I should,” he replied, very much pleased.
So Miss La Chêne telephoned downstairs to the restaurant, and a tea was sent up, but it did not suit the fastidious young woman. She did magical things to it with various electric devices; and the tea itself was so delectable, and the temporary hostess was so gay and amusing and delightful and kind, that Robinson soon completely recovered his spirits. He was a very good sort of fellow, too, when he had half a chance, and altogether they were so cozy and jolly that they quite forgot the time, until the clock struck.
Then, startled asCinderellawas by the same sound, Miss La Chêne sprang up from the tea table.
“Mon Dieu!” she cried. “Quatre heures! Madame sera bien fâchée! Mais que je suis bête! Mon Dieu!”
All this sounded very alarming to Robinson. He was relieved to hear that the only trouble was that the bank had closed at three o’clock, and Miss La Chêne could not deposit the jewels, as she had been directed to do.
“Well, if that’s all,” said he, “I’ll take ’em myself to-morrow morning. You run along and catch your train, and don’t worry.”
Then he had to spoil all that cheerful, innocent little hour they had had together. His face grew red, and he did not care to look at Miss La Chêne.
“Er,” he stammered, “I—I—I think it would be just as well not to mention to Mrs. Robinson—”
“Very well, Mr. Robinson,” said she.
Mandeville Ryder sat in a corner of the screened veranda, reading. It was a good place for reading, cool and breezy; the electric lamp afforded an excellent light, and his book was an interesting one. Twice his young niece, Elaine Milner, had come out to entreat him to come in and dance, but with a smile of lofty amusement he had refused. He said he preferred reading.
Yet, as a matter of fact, he hadn’t read one page. From where he sat he could look through the window, through the long room where the dancing was going on, into the smaller room beyond, where sat his two sisters, Mrs. Robinson and Mrs. Milner, and with them Miss La Chêne. He could look, and he did look.
Elaine was a pretty girl, and she had collected two or three rather pretty young things and a proper number of young fellows. All in all, they were a cheerful, well dressed, well mannered lot of young people, and the spectacle of their harmless merriment might well have brought a smile to the lips of any observer; yet Mandeville did not smile.
He was looking at Miss La Chêne, sitting there with the two ladies, silent, decorous, and patient, in her plain little dark silk dress, the very model of a companion. Only her enormous black eyes moved restlessly, following the dancers with a look which Mandeville could hardly endure.
“Poor little thing!” he said to himself. “Poorlittle thing! It’s a confounded shame!”
There wasn’t a girl there half so pretty as she, not a girl with anything like her style, her charm, her grace. She was beyond measure superior to all of them, yet there she had to sit, looking on.
“And I let her in for this!” young Ryder thought. “She has no business being a companion, anyhow. By George, if she had half a chance!”
And, with a rather touching naïveté, he thought he could remedy all this, could notably assist and hearten the poor little thing. He rose, put down his book, entered the house, threaded his way among the[Pg 198]dancers, and presently stood beside Miss La Chêne’s chair. She raised those big eyes to his face with a startled look.
“We’ll try a dance, eh?” said the lordly, blond-crested youth.
For a moment she hesitated. She knew she shouldn’t accept. Elaine wouldn’t like it, Elaine’s mother wouldn’t like it, Mrs. Robinson wouldn’t like it; but Miss La Chêne couldn’t resist. With another glance at Mandeville she rose, he put his arm about her, and off they went.
And, as he put it, they stopped the show. He was a wonderful dancer, and she was incomparable. They danced with the curious gravity of professionals. They did not smile, they did not speak, except when he gave a low, brief order for a change of step.
“Put on a tango!” said he, when the fox trot was ended.
Somebody did this, and now they had the floor to themselves. They stepped out with splendid arrogance, in absolute accord, lithe, utterly easy, utterly and disdainfully sure of themselves. Mandeville looked down at the dark, glowing little creature before him with a fine fire in his blue eyes.
“You’re the prettiest girl in the world!” he whispered. “And the sweetest!”
Well, this went to her head. When the tango was at an end, young Lyons, who was Elaine’s latest interest in life, came entreating Miss La Chêne for a dance. She forgot all worldly wisdom and discretion, she forgot everything, except that she was young and pretty, and that the handsomest and most distinguished young man in the room—or perhaps in the universe—had singled her out for his attentions, and that all the other men admired her.
Shelikedto be admired, and shelovedto dance. The music had got into her blood. Her slender shoulders moved restlessly. She smiled, and dimples showed in her olive cheeks. Her eyes were as bright as stars.
“I just will!” she thought. “I’ll have one happy evening, anyhow!”
She did. Penniless and obscure, in her plain, dark little dress, she had come among these luxurious girls and eclipsed them all. Every one of the young men was dazzled by her dainty coquetry, the faint foreign flavor of her allurement. The girls were prodigiously civil. They jolly well had to be, when this little intruder stood so high in favor with the opposite sex.
And all this was due to Mandeville Ryder. He had raised her up from her sorrowful obscurity. She made no secret of her gratitude. Her eyes were forever seeking his, and she generally found him looking at her. They smiled at each other with a sort of friendly understanding.
“He thinks he’s invented her,” said Elaine, to one of her friends.
But there came, of course, that moment so dear to sour and middle-aged moralists—the moment when the party breaks up, the music stops, and fatigue comes across laughing faces. The guests went away, and there was nobody left but the family and Miss La Chêne. She had danced, and now she must pay the piper; and his bill was likely to be a large one.
Elaine whispered something to her mother, Mrs. Milner whispered something to Mrs. Robinson, and they all looked at Miss La Chêne in a certain way. Mandeville had gone out on the veranda for a smoke, and she had no friend here.
“You needn’t wait,” said Mrs. Robinson, in a tone she had never used before.
There were two things the matter with Mandeville Ryder, and neither of them was fatal. He was too young, and he was spoiled. He was a handsome fellow, the only son of a well-to-do father; and he was so much run after and so much flattered that he had acquired a manner and an outlook lamentably toploftical. At heart, however, he was wholly honest, generous, and chivalrous.
On the morning after the dance, he went off to the city, resolved not to come back to his sister’s house, and not to think any more of Miss La Chêne; but even before lunch time he had resolved that he would go back. He was a conceited ass, he told himself, and a girl like Miss La Chêne was too good for any man.
So back he went, arriving a little before the dinner hour. Perhaps he was a little too consciously heroic in his determination to show the greatest deference toward Miss La Chêne; but he soon got over that, for he had no chance to display his heroism.
All the sparkle and gayety had gone from the poor girl. When he began to speak to her, she answered him with a hurried little nervous smile, and flitted away. He couldn’t even catch her eye. She fairly clung to Mrs. Robinson, hiding in the[Pg 199]shadow of that regal lady. She was so pale, so subdued, so startlingly changed from the charming little creature of the evening before, that Mandeville was worried.
It never occurred to him that he was responsible for this lamentable change, and he went ahead, making a sufficiently unpleasant situation worse and worse by his well meant efforts. At the dinner table he tried to bring the pale and downcast Miss La Chêne into the conversation, and wondered at her very brief answers and her flat, small voice. He knew that shecouldtalk.
“I’ll try a dance with you, Elaine,” he said to his niece, benevolently, after dinner.
“No,thankyou, Mandy,” said she, with a very peculiar smile.
“Well, what about you, Miss La Chêne?” he asked, in all innocence.
There was a terrific silence.
“N-no, thank you, Mr. Ryder,” she finally managed.
The wisdom of the past is very clearly demonstrated in the story ofCinderella. You will remember that that long-suffering girl maintained a canny silence regarding hersuccès fouat the court balls until the prince had made a frank declaration of his honorable intentions. Otherwise her life between balls, with those stepsisters and that stepmother, would have been unendurable—as Miss La Chêne’s life was now. Naturally Mrs. Robinson and Mrs. Milner did not like to see their adored and only brother making an idiot of himself about a girl who was just a little nobody, and naturally they firmly believed it was all the girl’s fault. They didn’t actuallysayanything, but they managed remarkably well with implications.
Miss La Chêne could not defend herself. Never before in her brief life had she shown herself deficient in spirit or in proper pride, but now a terrible humility had come over her. She thought Mandeville Ryder was so marvelous that he couldn’t possibly be interested in her. She thought he hadn’t really meant it when he said she was the prettiest girl in the world, and the sweetest. She thought he hadn’t really looked at her like that. How was it possible, when the most beautiful and charming and brilliant girls were all competing for his favor? No—he had only been kind to her, because it was his dear, splendid way to be kind to every one.
And, after all, his kindness had brought her nothing but misery. It seemed to her sometimes that she couldn’t bear the slights and the innuendoes of Mrs. Milner and Mrs. Robinson another moment; and yet she couldn’t quite make up her mind to go back to some cheap little boarding house, to wait there until she could find another position, possibly worse than this—and never, never to see Mandeville Ryder any more. She generally cried after she got into bed at night.
As for young Mandeville, he generally sat out on the veranda alone, smoking, and meditating in a very miserable way. Miss La Chêne as a dancing partner, gay and sparkling and lovely, had charmed him, but Miss La Chêne subdued and obviously unhappy touched him to the heart. What was the matter with her?
A week went by, and then the household was thrown into turmoil by a dramatic and tremendous reconciliation between Mrs. Robinson and her husband. Mrs. Robinson enjoyed it very much, Mr. Robinson not quite so much. Indeed, he had a pretty sheepish look when his wife sat beside him on the sofa, weeping, with her head on his shoulder, and announced to the assembled family:
“Lucian and I are going to make a fresh start, and all the miserable, miserable past is to be as if it had never been!”
That evening Elaine sang Tosti’s “Good-by” for them:
“Hark, a voice from the far-away!‘Listen and learn,’ it seems to say;‘All the to-morrows shall be as to-day,All the to-morrows shall be as to-day!’”
“Hark, a voice from the far-away!‘Listen and learn,’ it seems to say;‘All the to-morrows shall be as to-day,All the to-morrows shall be as to-day!’”
“Hark, a voice from the far-away!‘Listen and learn,’ it seems to say;‘All the to-morrows shall be as to-day,All the to-morrows shall be as to-day!’”
Her dancing eyes met Mandeville’s. He was obliged to get up and walk over to the window, to hide a reluctant and irresistible grin; but Mrs. Robinson noticed nothing. She had no sense of humor. She was too intense.
The next evening Robinson brought out his wife’s jewel case from the city, and, knowing what was expected of him in any reconciliation, he brought also a gift—a diamond pendant on a gold chain. It was impossible for Mrs. Robinson not to show to the other members of the household this proof of her husband’s penitent devotion. She took it downstairs, and Mrs. Milner and Elaine hastened to her, and they all three stood by the piano lamp, vehemently admiring the glittering thing.
Robinson was rather pleased with himself; but then, unfortunately, he caught[Pg 200]sight of little Miss La Chêne standing outside the charmed circle, pointedly disregarded by the others, and trying her valiant best to look as if she didn’t care. Though he was years and years older than Mandeville, and most bitterly experienced, the same dangerous notion came into Mr. Robinson’s head—the wish to be kind to the luckless young creature. He remembered how nice she had been to him, how kind and jolly over that impromptu tea, how loyal and discreet in never mentioning it to Mrs. Robinson.
He crossed the room to her side, and stood there, talking to her. Miss La Chêne, in the joy and comfort of being spoken to like a real, human girl, came to life. Her face grew bright and piquant again, and she said funny, amusing things that made Robinson laugh. They both forgot their terribly precarious positions, and were happy and cheerful.
Mrs. Robinson saw this; and that evening, when she went upstairs to her room, she discovered that one of her bracelets was missing from the jewel case. She had given the case to Miss La Chêne unlocked, and no one else had touched it.
“I c-can’t tell her!” thought the thrice-wretched Robinson. “Not now! If I’d mentioned it in the beginning—but now, after all this t-time! If she knew that we had t-tea together, and that I t-took the infernal case! I can’t stand another of these rows—I simply c-can’t! I’ll make it right, somehow.”
So he persuaded his outraged wife not to summon policemen, or detectives, or sheriffs that night, but to wait until the morning. Then he pretended to go to sleep, but it was a long time before sleep really came to him. He felt certain that Miss La Chêne would not betray him, and he felt equally certain that to count upon her loyalty was about as contemptible a thing as his sorry weakness had ever led him into doing.
Mandeville Ryder returned to his sister’s house the next evening at the usual hour, and found Elaine sitting alone on the veranda.
“Hello, Mandy!” she greeted him.
“Afternoon, Elaine,” he vouchsafed.
“Golly, such a row!” said she.
“Who? Sheila and Lucian?” he asked, not much interested.
“No—Aunt Sheila and mother and that poor little French girl—”
“What?”
“Yes!” said Elaine. “They’ve been looking for a chance to destroy her ever since you danced with her. We’ve all been pretty beastly.I’msorry. I don’t believe she ever stole—”
“She—stole?”
“That’s the tale—that she stole Aunt Sheila’s bracelet—the one you gave her two years ago on her fifth anniversary.”
“She?” cried Mandeville. His healthy face grew pale. His eyes narrowed. “That’s a damned lie!” he said.
Elaine was enchanted by this dramatic outburst.
“You never heard such a row!” she continued, with unction. “You know what mother and Aunt Sheila are when they get going. I feel sorry for the poor girl.”
“Where is she?” demanded Mandeville.
“Oh, she’s gone!” said Elaine cheerfully. “But—oh, here’s Uncle Lucian! Better and better!PoorUncle Lucian! He—”
But Mandeville waited to hear no more. He ran up the stairs, to face his sister, and to find out where Miss La Chêne had gone.
At first he could find neither of his sisters, although he heard their voices. He flung open door after door, and at last he discovered them in the little room that had been Miss La Chêne’s.
Sheila Robinson was very busy there. She was emptying out the bureau drawers, ransacking the wardrobe, and unpacking a trunk. All over the floor lay Miss La Chêne’s dainty belongings—filmy little garments, shoes, bits of ribbon, a pathetic wreath of flowers from a hat. The sight of these things—her things—trampled underfoot, was more than the young man could endure.
“What are you doing in here?” he shouted.
“My bracelet is gone,” said his sister, “and I’m going to search that girl’s room thoroughly.”
“Clear out of here!” he ordered. “I won’t have it!”
“Youwon’t have it?” said she. “And pray—”
“Look here!” said he. “Maybe you’ve forgotten the time you accused that poor little chambermaid of stealing your ring, when it was in your purse all the time; but I haven’t. I won’t have Miss La Chêne called[Pg 201]—”
“Lucian!” she cried, spying her husband in the doorway. “Don’t let Mandeville insult me like this!”
The unhappy Robinson essayed a smile.
“I—I—I say, Mandy!” he stammered. “Sheila’s upset, you know, and—”
“Get her out of here, Lucian!” cried Mandeville.
“This is my house,” said Mrs. Milner, “and Sheila has a perfect right to be here. That little French thing has robbed—”
“Stop that!” shouted Mandeville. “Look here, Lucian, if you don’t get them both out of here—”
“Lucian, are you a man?” his wife demanded wildly. “Will you allow your own wife to be insulted and ordered out—”
Mandeville advanced toward his brother-in-law until he stood towering above him.
“If you don’t keep her quiet—” he said.
“Lucian, protect me!” wailed Sheila.
“I—I—I—” began Robinson.
With one glance at him, Mandeville turned away. Only one glance—but it might better have been a blow.
Elaine Milner was sitting on the veranda again, the next afternoon, all ready with an astounding piece of news. A station taxi came up the drive, and out stepped Mandeville Ryder.
“Oh, Mandy!” she cried, when her attention was diverted by the arrival of a second taxi, from which descended her Uncle Lucian.
“For Heaven’s sake!” thought she. “Separate taxis—and they’re not even speaking to each other!”
Before she had recovered herself, both men had gone into the house. Robinson went to his wife’s room, where she was not. Mandeville went to Mrs. Milner’s boudoir, where she was. He knocked on the door.
“Come in!” called his two sisters, and in he went.
“Sheila!” he said. “Look here! I—I want you to send for Miss La Chêne to come back—”
“I dare say you do!” his sister interrupted.
His face was flushed, and no man had ever a guiltier air. Young Mandeville was not diplomatic, not adroit. So far in his life he had had no occasion to be. He had existed in magnificent candor.
“You made a big mistake,” he went on. “I knew it all the time. I knew she—”
“Perfectly obvious!” murmured Sheila.
These words very greatly perturbed him. He didn’t know quite what his sister meant, and he was alarmed; but he continued doggedly:
“Because I found your confounded bracelet this morning—in your room at the hotel, where you’d left it.”
Mrs. Robinson and Mrs. Milner looked at each other.
“Ah!” murmured Sheila.
“And here it is,” said he.
Mrs. Robinson took the velvet case that he held out to her, opened it, and looked inside.
“I see!” said she. “What a sweet, dear boy you are, Mandy! Isn’t he, Nina?”
“Perfectly pathetic!” said Mrs. Milner.
“Well, why?” he demanded, horribly confused.
No one answered him.
“Well, look here!” he went on. “Now that you’ve got the thing, will you send for her to come back? Or you can tell me where she lives, and I’ll go and explain—”
“Oh, I’m sure you would, Mandy!” said Sheila sweetly.
“Well, what—” he began, growing angry now.
There was another knock at the door, and in came Lucian Robinson. He started at the sight of Mandeville. He wished never to see Mandeville again. He couldn’t forget that look; and he couldn’t forget that if Mandeville had known the truth, his contempt would have been beyond measure greater. At the same time, he couldn’t help liking the contemptuous young man, and admiring him, because he knew that nothing in this world could ever induce Mandeville to do a base or cowardly thing.
“I—I—I—” he said, turning toward the door again. “L-later, my dear!”
“Do come in, Lucian!” said his wife. “Mandeville was just speaking of Miss La Chêne.”
“Th-that’s queer!” cried Robinson, with very strained geniality. “Dashed queer! Because I—”
“Because you were just thinking about her?” his wife inquired pleasantly.
“N-no,” said he; “but—but—but—the thing is, I got thinking about that b-bracelet, and—well!” From his pocket he pulled a velvet case. “H-here it is!” he said. “I found it in your room at the—”
He stopped, stricken with horror by the[Pg 202]expression on his wife’s face. She rose. She opened the door into Mrs. Milner’s bedroom.
“Miss La Chêne!” she said. “Kindly come here! Perhapsyoucan explain this!”
In came Miss La Chêne. Her face bore the marks of recent tears, but she looked not at all abashed or humbled. On the contrary, she held her little head mighty high.
“You see,” Mrs. Robinson said to her, “both these gentlemen found my bracelet in the room at the hotel. Doesn’t that seem rather strange?” She turned toward her husband. “Because,” she went on, “I telephoned to Miss La Chêne this morning, to tell her that I had found it myself, in my bureau drawer.”
Silence.
“I wanted to apologize to Miss La Chêne,” Sheila continued. “I thought she might be feeling badly about it. I didn’t know howmanypeople there were to look after her and defend her. Mandeville and Lucian—Mandeville I can understand, but why you should take it upon yourself, Lucian, to shield this girl before you knew whether or not—”
“Please!” Miss La Chêne interrupted anxiously. “It was a kind and generous thing for Mr. Robinson to do for—”
“You have the effrontery to take his part against me?” cried Mrs. Robinson. “This—”
“W-wait!” said Robinson.
They all turned, startled by his tone. The harassed and wretched man had spoken with a sternness no one had ever heard him employ before. The spectacle of Miss La Chêne defending him was a little more than he could bear. He had come to the end of his tether. Indeed, he had cut it, and he stood free. His stammer had left him, and so had his nervous smile.
“Be good enough to keep your disgusting suspicions to yourself,” he said to his wife. “They only lower you in my eyes.”
“You dare—” she began.
“I’m sick and tired of being bullied and suspected and accused,” he went on. “Of course I bought this bracelet. I did it partly to save a defenseless girl, whom I knew to be innocent, from the outrageous treatment I knew she’d get at your hands; but I did it chiefly because I owed it to her. I was the last one to handle your accursed jewel case. I took it from Miss La Chêne in the city. I met her there the day you left. I had tea with her; and you can be proud or not of the fact that I was afraid to tell you I had spoken to her.”
The effect of this speech was tremendous. Every one in the room was stricken into sinister silence.
There stood Robinson, pale, but absolutely resolute, waiting for the storm to break. It was going to be awful, but he didn’t care. He wasn’t going to be badgered and bullied any more. Sheila was a fine woman. He always had thought so, and he thought so now, but she—
“Lucian!” breathed Mrs. Milner, as if in awe.
“Lucian!” cried Mrs. Robinson.
And he saw that instead of being temporarily speechless with rage, she was looking at him as she hadn’t looked for years and years—not since that day, before they were married, when he had won the tennis singles, and she had called him “my hero” in a very silly but somehow rather touching way.
“Oh, Lucian!” she cried again.
His business training had taught him that nothing is more fatal than a half triumph. He must go forward.
“No!” said he. “Don’t talk to me. I won’t be talked to about this. Only I want to offer my most sincere and humble apologies to Miss La Chêne—”
“Mon Dieu!” cried Miss La Chêne, completely overcome. “Ah, monsieur! Que vous êtes gentil! Que vous êtes bon!”
“Please don’t cry!” said Robinson.
“Je n’y puis rien!” sobbed she.
He really couldn’t bear this, especially as, for all he knew, her words might be an appeal to his better nature. He came nearer to her and patted her shoulder.
“There! There! There!” he said gently.
And the poor little thing, worn out by the series of terrific scenes in which she had been engaged, and by the misery and anxiety she had endured, rested her head on Mr. Robinson’s shoulder and cried and cried.
This was a sight which could not fail to impress Sheila Robinson deeply.
“Lucian!” she said, beginning to cry herself, and speaking in an imploring tone. “Please forgive me! Oh, please forgive me—and come over here!”
Robinson looked at his wife over Miss La Chêne’s shoulder. In his heart he felt extremely sorry to see that regal creature[Pg 203]brought low, but he meant never to admit this.
“The episode,” said he, “is ended. You have your bracelet—three of ’em in fact; so we’ll say no more about it.”
Then he looked at Mandeville. The young man was frowning heavily. He was profoundly displeased, but he was no longer contemptuous. On the contrary, he was envious.
“Er—Miss La Chêne!” said he.
She raised her head from Robinson’s shoulder, smiled uncertainly, and walked off to a corner of the room, there to dry her eyes. Mandeville followed her.
“Look here!” said he to her, very low. “Robinson’s a fine fellow, and so on, but he’s married!”
“What of it?” said she coldly. “Do I do anything wrong?”
“Oh, no!” Mandeville replied hastily. “Of course not. Only—look here! Don’t—please don’t be—too French, you know!”
They went out into the garden, and walked about there; and Mandeville must have advanced some excellent arguments, because, before dinner was announced, Miss La Chêne had promised not to be French at all any more, but to become an American for the rest of her life.[Pg 204]
MUNSEY’SMAGAZINE
APRIL, 1925Vol. LXXXIVNUMBER 3
[Pg 205]
By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
IT was an afternoon very much like many other afternoons. Leadenhall stood on the corner waiting for her. He was so weary, and still so much absorbed in the work he had just left, he had waited for her so often, and he was so sure of her coming, that he scarcely thought of her at all.
It was five o’clock of a fierce July day, and the sun still blazed unabated in a cloudless sky. Before him, along Fifth Avenue, went an unceasing stream of busses and motor cars. The noise, the heat, the reek, the tireless movement, exasperated him. He wanted to go home for a cold shower and a quiet smoke. He wanted to be let alone.
Then he saw her, and there was nothing else in the world. She was coming down a side street with that eager, beautiful gait of hers, so straight and gallant, so self-possessed and debonair—and so touchingly slight and young. He noticed for the first time, with an odd contraction of the heart, how thin she had grown this summer.
She had stopped at the corner. She smiled at him across the stream of traffic, and a pang shot through him, because her dear face was so tired. He raised his hat, but he could not smile in return. All the other things—the minor things that had troubled him—were lost in his great anxiety for Jacqueline. He dashed across the street, with the luck of the foolhardy, and stood before her, looking at her in alarm.
“Jacko!” he said. “Jacko! You’re tired!”
“Well, I know it,” she answered, laughing. “So are you! Who isn’t, this awful weather?”
But she stopped laughing as their eyes met. They stood there, looking at each other in silence for a long minute. Then the color rose in her cheeks, and she turned her head aside.
“Barty, don’t be silly,” she said.
He did not answer. He took her arm to pilot her across the street again. It seemed to him a terribly frail arm. He seized it tightly, in a sort of panic. She meant to make a laughing protest against being hustled along in this fashion, but somehow the light words would not come. A glance at Barty’s face made her heart sink.
“Oh, he is going to be silly!” she thought, in despair. “And I’m so tired, and so hot, and so—unconvincing!”
It had been decided between them that spring that they were to be simply good pals—until a more propitious season. They were not even engaged. No, they were both perfectly free. She had insisted that it should be so, and so it was. She was free to worry about him and yearn over him—even to cry over him night after night, if she liked. He was free, too, to do as he chose; but when she looked at him now, at the close of this weary day—
“You don’t take one bit of care of yourself!” she said suddenly, in an angry, trembling voice. “I know perfectly well you’ve been smoking too much, and I know you didn’t eat a proper lunch. Just look at you!”
He was startled.
“There’s nothing the matter with me, dear girl,” he said. “It’s only—”
“I wish you could see yourself!” she cried. “You have a big black smudge on your chin!”
“Well, that’s not fatal,” he said, beginning to laugh; but then he saw tears in her eyes. “Jacko! You’re nervous and upset. You’re overworked. You’re tired. You’re—Jacko, you look like the devil!”
“Thank you![Pg 206]”
“I can’t stand it,” he went on doggedly, “and I won’t stand it! I want to take care of you!”
“You said you wouldn’t be silly, Barty!”
“Silly!” said he. “I’ve been a fool! I won’t go on like this. If you love me at all, if you care for me even a little, you won’t ask me to.”
They had entered the park, and were walking down their usual path at their usual brisk pace, only that to-day Barty held her by the arm, like a captive, and their customary friendly conversation failed. The hour she had dreaded had come.
Barty was not easy to manage. Her ideal had been not to manage him, not to use any feminine arts to beguile him, but to be frankly and splendidly his comrade; but somehow that didn’t work. She could not reason with Barty, she could not persuade him, she only could make him do as she wished by the power she had over him. He loved her so much that for love he would yield, and she did not want that. A true friend, a good pal, would not stoop to managing.
“Barty,” said she, “let’s sit down here and talk.”
So he sat beside her on a bench and listened. All the time she spoke, she saw—with dismay, and yet with a queer little thrill of delight—that her words made absolutely no impression. Of course, she spoke of Stafford, because Stafford was the dominant factor in their problem. If Barty were to marry now, it would seriously offend Stafford, and that would be the height of folly.
A queer fellow, Stafford was—sensitive and touchy. He had done a great deal for Barty, and he expected Barty to appreciate it. Certainly he gave a great deal, but it had always seemed to Jacqueline that Stafford got the best of the bargain.
He was one of the foremost architects in the city. It was an honor for the obscure young Barty to be singled out by such a man, to be taken into his office, and, just recently, to be asked to share a studio apartment with the great man; but in return he got all Barty’s honest enthusiasm, his fidelity and gratitude. He had Barty’s companionship, Barty’s sympathy for the many affronts this rough world offers to sensitive men.
Indeed, Jacqueline thought, he had a most unfair share of Barty’s life; but Barty did not see that, and she was not going to mention it. Not for any consideration on earth would she speak one word against Barty’s hero. Not for any possible gain to herself would she tarnish his faith in his friend, or injure his prospects for the future. She simply spoke in a quiet, reasonable way of all that he owed Stafford.
“And when it means so much,” she said, “to both of us—when it affects your whole future—”
“Well,” said Barty deliberately, “I dare say you’re right.” She glanced up hopefully. “But I don’t care,” he went on. “I love you, and I won’t go on like this any longer! I’ve tried, and I can’t—that’s all. I can’t stand seeing you thin and miserable and shabby—”
“I’m not shabby, Barty!”
“You are—foryou,” he said. “You ought to have everything in the world! You’re so beautiful and wonderful! And you won’t let me do anything for you. You won’t—”
“I would let you,” she said hurriedly. “I’d let you—I’d love you to do all sorts of things for me, Barty. I’d marry you to-morrow, if—”
“If what?” he demanded.
This idea had been so long in her mind, these words had been so often on the tip of her tongue, that now she was going to speak them, whether he liked it or not.
“If you’d just get married—unostentatiously,” she said.
“Unostentatiously?” he repeated. “I don’t know what you mean, Jacko.”
“I mean, just go down to the City Hall and get married, and you go on with your work, and I’ll go on with mine, and we won’t tell any one.”
“Oh!” said he. “You mean secretly, do you?”
He was looking at her with an expression she had never seen on his face before. There was a hard, cold look in his gray eyes.
“It’s no use talking about that,” he said curtly, “because I won’t do it.”
But he did. Later on, she remembered that hour with bitter regret and remorse—the hour of her victory and his defeat. She had been unfair, cruelly unfair. She had made use of those tears which he could not endure. She had held out to him the prospect of gaining everything and losing nothing, of having her and yet not alienating Stafford.[Pg 207]
He was ambitious, and she tempted him. She took advantage of his hot-headed, unreasonable love for her, and she conquered him; and his defeat was bad for her and worse for him.
She meant only to do him good, to help him; but she was very young, and she was a woman, and she had all a woman’s blind and beautiful and absurd determination that her beloved should have his cake and eat it, too. Barty needed her, and he should have her; and he needed Stafford, and he should have Stafford too. Barty should have everything—except his own way.
Good pals don’t mind waiting. They understand how unimportant are tea engagements compared with careers. They understand that often a man simply can’t get away at a certain time. Even if he is too busy to telephone, even if he forgets the engagement altogether, why, a good pal accepts all that cheerfully.
Still, Jacqueline did not think it necessary to be superfluously cheerful. She was sitting at a table near the window of a down town tea room, waiting for Barty to join her.
The tea room closed at seven. It was now half past six, and she had been sitting there since half past five. The brightness of the September day had faded into twilight. The street outside, so crowded a little while ago, was quiet now. One by one people were leaving the tea room, so that she was surrounded by a widening area of empty tables. A group of waitresses stood in a corner, talking together. There was a general air of home-going; but she had no home.
“It’s not Barty’s fault,” she said sturdily, to herself. “It was my own idea.”
She had made Barty do this. She had insisted upon this sort of marriage. If it had turned out to be so much harder than she had foreseen, it was her fault, not his. She was gallantly determined to carry on to the very end, like a good pal. She did not want Barty to know how hard it was. She was glad he did not know, and yet—
If he had not become resigned to the situation quite so readily! They had been married seven weeks now, and his protests had ceased. He no longer rebelled. All his thoughts were of the future. He was working with a sort of dogged fury for that marvelous future, so that the present seemed scarcely to exist for him.
“It’s all for you, little pal,” he had often said to her.
She knew he meant that, and she loved him for his ambition, his energy, his determination. Presently he would come hurrying in, eager to tell her exactly what he had been doing, absolutely confident that she would understand, that she hadn’t minded waiting. He would talk about the fine things that were going to happen—in five years’ time. He would talk about large, impressive things. The little things—herthings—would never be mentioned.
For she could not hurt and trouble him by telling him how her back ached and her head ached from typing all day, or how unreasonable, how beastly, Miss Clarke had become, how lamentably the meals had deteriorated in her little hotel under the new management, or how very awkward it was to explain to sundry young men that she would never go out with them, and wished to see them no more.
“It would be like throwing rocks on a railway track,” she reflected, smiling a little at the fancy. “It would derail poor Barty, just when he’s flying along so splendidly, too!”
A very nice young couple at the next table rose and went out, and Jacqueline looked after them with a curious expression. She decided that they were engaged, would soon be married, and would go to live in a new little house somewhere, or even a flat—any place where lamps would be lighted at this twilight hour.
“Miss Miles!” exclaimed a delighted voice. Looking up, she saw Mr. Terrill. “I just dropped in to buy some chocolates,” he explained, “and I saw you!”
He spoke as if it were the most amazing and delightful thing that could have befallen him. Never before had Jacqueline seen Mr. Terrill except in the presence of Miss Clarke, and she was surprised at the difference in him.
Miss Clarke, the authoress, somehow had a way of dwarfing all those about her. She was so brilliant, so handsome, so humorous. Jacqueline herself, secretary to this eminent woman, had always felt very young and very uninteresting, and Mr. Terrill had seemed to her an agreeable but rather insipid gentleman.
He did not appear insipid now. He had, thought Jacqueline, a really distinguished[Pg 208]air. He was a tall, slight man of perhaps thirty-five, with a sensitive, well bred face and a singularly pleasant voice. He was looking down at her.
“Miss Miles!” he said. “You look tired.”
“I am tired,” replied Jacqueline.
It was a relief to admit this, instead of pretending, like a good pal, that she was not tired and never could be tired.
“Can’t we have a cup of tea together?” he asked.
“I’m waiting for some one,” she told him.
“But can’t we have tea while you’re waiting?” said he. “The place will close in fifteen minutes or so, you know.”
A queer little anger arose in her. Barty would not like her to have tea with Mr. Terrill. He was more than an hour late already, but he would think nothing of that. He would explain casually that he had been too busy to get away, and he would expect her to understand. Well, it was her own fault—she had told him so many times that she did understand.
“All right!” she said to herself. “There’s no reason why I shouldn’t have tea with Mr. Terrill. It’ll do Barty good. Let him do a little of the understanding, for a change!”
But when the tea room had closed, and Barty had not come, she discovered that it was Mr. Terrill, after all, who exasperated her, because he was not Barty. It was her own Barty that she wanted, and no one else. The idea of Mr. Terrill presuming, even unconsciously, to take Barty’s place!
She was humiliated, too, that Terrill should have seen her here, waiting and waiting for some one who did not come. She was so tired, so dispirited!
Terrill was walking along the street beside her, in the direction of the subway, and he was asking her to go down to Long Beach in his car on Sunday.
“Sorry,” said Jacqueline curtly, “but I can’t. I have an engagement.”
“It would do you good,” said Terrill. “You look played out, Miss Miles. A day at the seashore—”
“I said I had an engagement,” Jacqueline interrupted pettishly.
Terrill was neither discouraged nor offended, and his patience and courtesy made her ashamed of herself; but, for some inexplicable reason, being ashamed of herself caused her to behave still more outrageously toward Terrill. She had never in her life been so disagreeable to any one.
The worst of it was that she found a wicked satisfaction in it, because she saw that Terrill regarded her little outburst of pettishness as an engaging feminine caprice. Apparently he did not care how trying she was. He seemed to think she had a right to moods and humors. Evidently he had no notion of her as a pal.