Part 41 (1/2)

”Needs Keeley cure. Good natured cuss; wonder if the Wins.h.i.+p'll get him.”

”Lay ye three to one--say twenties--that he gets away, like that Strathay--”

I addressed some smiling speech to the wretches, but through the whole evening my cheeks did not cease to burn.

When the last guest had gone, tired and hysterical as she was, Mrs.

Whitney began a long tirade.

”It must be stopped! It must be stopped!” she cried, pacing back and forth.

The blaze of anger improved her. She must have been a handsome woman once--tall and slender, with fine dark eyes that roll about dramatically.

”I don't see what there is to stop,” I said, perversity taking possession of me, though at heart I quite agreed with her estimate of the evening.

”The object of an entertainment being to entertain, why shouldn't the men I know come to ours? If they stayed away, you'd be disappointed; but when they come, as they did to-night, you're frightened, or pretend to be.”

”I'm not frightened; I'm appalled. I don't mean Mr. Burke, though he's a detrimental--and, by the way, he was as much distressed to-night as I was.

I mean the men who have families--wives and daughters! Why didn't they bring 'em--or stay away?”

”I'd thank John Burke to mind his own business,” I cried hotly. ”He doesn't have to come here unless he wants to.”

”There is only one way,” she went on, as if speaking to herself, pacing the floor and fanning herself violently--for her face, and especially her nose, was as red as a beet; she really laces disgracefully--”there's only one way; I must fall ill at once. I must have nervous prostration, or-- it's nearly June. I shall leave town. Heavens! What a night!”

”You're a.s.suming a great deal. Our arrangements were made by two, and are hardly to be broken by one. You can't agree to matronize me--let me buy furniture for you, and then abandon me, cut off my social opportunities-- leave me--”

”Social opportunity! Social collapse! Disgrace! Why, your prospects were really extraordinary. But now! Where was Meg to-night? Where was Mrs.

Marmaduke? Why did my own sister-in-law stay away?”

”I don't know; do you?”

Her harangue begun, she couldn't stop. ”Where's Strathay?” she demanded.

”Gone; and no announcement--what was the matter? Needn't tell me you refused him! And why is the letter box always full of duns? Can't you pay your bills? Why didn't you say so earlier? Would have saved us both a deal of trouble!”

”I didn't tell you I had money.”

”You played the part, ordering dresses fit for a d.u.c.h.ess, and things for the flat. You spent enough on a wedding gift for Peggy--or was it a promise to spend?--to support a family a month--peace offering because you'd abused her!--Of course if you'd made the great success everybody expected, you'd be on the top wave, and so should I. I don't deny I thought of that. But now--an evening like this--no women worth counting and a horde of men--well, it's bad enough for me, but it's worse for you.

No one'll say I brought 'em.”

”Oh, no,” I a.s.sented.

”It comes to this, then,” she went on at full heat, flus.h.i.+ng and fanning herself still more violently; ”either you or I must leave this house, and at once.”

”Well, I sha'n't.”

And so she did!

Whose fault was it that we were left in such a predicament--that of the inexperienced girl, or the chaperon's? What is a chaperon for? Mrs.

Whitney has treated me shamefully, shamefully! Here I am all by myself, and I don't know what to do.