Part 22 (1/2)

”No--not always--once or twice.” She was so far away, though in his arms, that her voice seemed to come to him across a long wire.

”Did you love any of them?”

”No.”

”Are you sure?”

”There's nothing I'm surer of than that.”

”Does that mean that you are not engaged to Mr. Enslee?”

She laughed again.

”Not necessarily.”

CHAPTER XX

Forgiveness and garters lose their snap when they are stretched too often. Once before Forbes had apologized to Persis for an excess of enthusiasm, and her forgiveness had brought back her cordiality with perfect elasticity. The second time there had been a slight sag.

The boundary between the impertinence of a cad and the privilege of a suitor is vague and wavering. The act that is accepted as a manifestation of devotion, a pretty caress, from the accepted lover becomes a liberty from the libertine. In his ardor Forbes had overstepped the dead-line.

There was no especial reason why the pressure of foot upon foot should be a less poetic tribute than a lingering clasp of the hands. But thinking makes it so, and when Forbes put his best foot forward, Persis resented it as a familiarity, an affront. It meant in her eyes that he held her cheap and easy. It was like her to be less angry with him than with herself. She reasoned that if a man she had just met could so speedily rate her so low, there must be some appalling fault in her manner. Her self-confidence was shaken.

But just as she had set Forbes in the category of men with whom a woman must be on her guard, he spoke of being jealous of her, and his very eyes and the flush on his cheeks shouted that he meant it.

There is, perhaps, no other tribute a woman prizes so highly as jealousy. Other tokens of esteem may be silver, gilt, or plated ware, but jealousy is the hallmark of sincerity; jealousy is at least eighteen karats fine.

The moment Forbes said he had been jealous, and by his eager questions, by their very insistent impertinence, indeed, proved that he was now jealous, he became important to Persis. The fervor of his previous actions was almost justified. Even the intrusion upon her foot was a different act.

Women usually think that love excuses almost everything, and sanctifies what were else ridiculous or disgusting. They absolve the sinner who can plead, ”I was in love,” more easily than the self-righteous abstainer.

Besides, there was something uncanny to Persis in Forbes' statement that he had followed her up the Avenue, and had felt a jealousy of her haste; because that had been a momentous day altogether.

She had begun it by a shopping raid. She had run across a flock of new hats, curious oddities from Paris, perched like strange birds alighted in a window. They pulled down so far on one side that they blinded one eye of the wearer, and they thrust out so far to the rear and the side that they blinded the pa.s.ser-by.

As she was trying one of them on, she turned her head to speak to the rhapsodical manager. She swept the face of the saleswoman till she sneezed; and when Persis turned to apologize to the saleswoman, the manager found himself inhaling exotic goura. It was fascinating. She simply must have some of these hats.

But there had been a very polite note with her last bill, a timid plea that she pay a trifle on the venerable debt. She hardly dared increase the sum instead of diminis.h.i.+ng it. She decided to ask her father's help.

The price was beyond her own private bank-account, which was usually chaotically overdrawn, and which the bank carried along with an amused patience, because her father was one of its oldest customers.

Determined to have those hats that day or die, Persis had ridden all the way to her father's office in Broad Street to ask him to buy them. She had found him in great distress. Before she could explain her errand, he had said, with a smile that was pitifully brave:

”I needn't ask what evil motive brings you down here. It was just to tell your old father how much you love him.”

”Yes, of course; you know how I wors.h.i.+p you.” She sat on the arm of his chair with a smile as alluring as a mining-stock prospectus. ”Also, I thought you'd like to know that I've struck the most wonderful hats ever imported. They're marked down to almost nothing, and they're really an amazing bargain--especially when you deduct the cost of an ocean voyage, for I couldn't equal them this side of Paris.”

He shook his head with a helpless finality that gave her pause. This terrified her. He had refused her something! She knew that the only things that would prevent him from giving her money were absence of funds and inability to borrow them. He explained, tenderly:

”I'm in a lot of trouble, honey. I've got to s.h.i.+ft some of my loans to other banks, and I've got to borrow a lot more somewhere. And I don't know where. I'm sorry to tell you, but you'd better know.”