Part 58 (2/2)
”What kind of a dress do you want?” I inquired as we entered the store.
”An evening one; a white satin, I think.”
I could not help the exclamation which escaped me; but I covered it up as quickly as possible by a hurried remark in favor of white, and we proceeded at once to the silk counter.
”I will trust it all to you,” she whispered in an odd, choked tone as the clerk approached us. ”Get what you would for your daughter--no, no!
for Mr. Van Burnam's daughter, if he has one, and do not spare expense.
I have five hundred dollars in my pocket.”
Mr. Van Burnam's daughter! Well, well! A tragedy of some kind was portending! But I bought the dress.
”Now,” said she, ”lace, and whatever else I need to make it up suitably.
And I must have slippers and gloves. You know what a young girl requires to make her look like a lady. I want to look so well that the most critical eye will detect no fault in my appearance. It can be done, can it not, Miss b.u.t.terworth? My face and figure will not spoil the effect, will they?”
”No,” said I; ”you have a good face and a beautiful figure. You ought to look well. Are you going to a ball, my dear?”
”I am going to a ball,” she answered; but her tone was so strange the people pa.s.sing us turned to look at her.
”Let us have everything sent to the carriage,” said she, and went with me from counter to counter with her ready purse in her hand, but not once lifting her veil to look at what was offered us, saying over and over as I sought to consult her in regard to some article: ”Buy the richest; I leave it all to you.”
Had Mr. Gryce not told me she must be humored, I could never have gone through this ordeal. To see a girl thus expend her h.o.a.rded savings on such frivolities was absolutely painful to me, and more than once I was tempted to decline any further partic.i.p.ation in such extravagance. But a thought of my obligations to Mr. Gryce restrained me, and I went on spending the poor girl's dollars with more pain to myself than if I had taken them out of my own pocket.
Having purchased all the articles we thought necessary, we were turning towards the door when Miss Oliver whispered:
”Wait for me in the carriage for just a few minutes. I have one more thing to buy, and I must do it alone.”
”But----” I began.
”I will do it, and I will not be followed,” she insisted, in a shrill tone that made me jump.
And seeing no other way of preventing a scene, I let her leave me, though it cost me an anxious fifteen minutes.
When she rejoined me, as she did at the expiration of that time, I eyed the bundle she held with decided curiosity. But I could make no guess at its contents.
”Now,” she cried, as she reseated herself and closed the carriage door, ”where shall I find a dressmaker able and willing to make up this satin in five days?”
I could not tell her. But after some little search we succeeded in finding a woman who engaged to make an elegant costume in the time given her. The first measurements were taken, and we drove back to Ninth Street with a lasting memory in my mind of the cold and rigid form of Miss Oliver standing up in Madame's triangular parlor, submitting to the mechanical touches of the modiste with an outward composure, but with a brooding horror in her eyes that bespoke an inward torment.
x.x.xIX.
THE WATCHFUL EYE.
As I parted with Miss Oliver on Mrs. Desberger's stoop and did not visit her again in that house, I will introduce the report of a person better situated than myself to observe the girl during the next few days. That the person thus alluded to was a woman in the service of the police is evident, and as such may not meet with your approval, but her words are of interest, as witness:
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