Part 51 (1/2)
She gave him a look that was both rebuking and rebuked, and urged her horse along. But a little later her response to beauty filled her again with the contentment of repletion, and she checked her horse by the marble-walled pool, whose surface was broken and circled here and there by gleaming red fish with lacy fins and tails; they were darting and leaping in acrobatic ecstasies.
”They're making love, too, I suppose,” Persis said, a trifle anxiously.
And he was still aggrieved enough to answer: ”And the fish ladies also select the gentleman with the most gold.”
She stared at him a moment, hurt and shamed. Then she flung back at him:
”Then you oughtn't to blame us--us other females for making the wisest choice we can. It must be a law of nature.”
”It must be,” he sighed, so humbly that she regretted her victory. She would have put out her hand to comfort him, but she saw above them Willie Enslee leaning across the bal.u.s.trade. She lifted her horse into a jog-trot, and they rode into the court, where a chauffeur waited to take the horses to the stable.
Willie greeted them in his whiniest tone.
”Where on earth were you? We've been home for ages.”
”We got off the main road,” Persis said, as she climbed the steps, followed by Forbes, ”and the horses were tired and--”
”I was awfully anxious. I was about to start out to look for you.”
”There was no occasion to be anxious.”
”Besides, your father telephoned you.”
”My father! Is he back in New York?”
”No; he telephoned from Chicago. He was just leaving on the twenty-hour train. He couldn't wait till you got back.”
”What did he have to say?”
”Lots.” Willie looked uneasily at Forbes, as if he were in the way.
”I'll be changing for dinner,” Forbes said, with uncomfortable haste.
”You'd better be cooking the dinner,” Willie said. ”Winifred is counting on your soldierly experience to help her out.”
So Forbes went to the kitchen to salute and report for duty. As he entered the house he looked back to see Enslee leading Persis toward the marble steps to the little temple where he proposed regularly.
Forbes' heart thudded heavily in his breast. He felt helpless to protest or intervene in any way. Persis was up at auction. He had bidden her in under a misapprehension of the upset price, and she was put back for sale again.
CHAPTER x.x.xIX
As she mounted the steps with Willie, Persis felt something of Forbes'
regret. She was a slave on the block, and the man she wanted for owner was crowded from the mart.
”What did father have to say?” she asked, in a dull tone already despairing.
”I--I--it wasn't very pleasant.”