Part 6 (1/2)
Nita was gazing out on the gorgeous effect of sunset light and shadow on the eastern cliffs and crags across the Hudson, a flush as vivid mantling her cheeks, her lip quivering. She was making valiant efforts to control herself before replying.
”I'm _not_ in love with him,” she finally said.
”Perhaps not--yet. Surely I hope not, but it looked awfully like it was coming--and Nita, you simply mustn't. You've got to marry money if I have to stand guard over you and see you do it--and you know you can this minute--if you'll only listen.”
The younger girl wheeled sharply, her eyes flas.h.i.+ng. ”Peggy, you promised me I shouldn't hear that hateful thing again--at least not until we left here--and you've broken your word--twice. You----”
”It's because I must. I can't see you drifting--the way I did when, with your youth and--advantages you can pick and choose. Colonel Frost has mines and money all over the West, and he was your shadow at the seash.o.r.e, and all broken up--he told me--so when we came here. Paddy Latrobe is a beautiful boy without a penny--”
”His uncle--” began Nita feebly.
”His uncle had a sister to support besides Paddy's mother. His pay as brigadier in the regular service is only fifty-five hundred. He _can't_ have saved much of anything in the past, and he may last a dozen years yet--or more. Even if he does leave everything then to Latrobe, what'll you do meantime? Don't be a fool, Nita, because I was. I _had_ to be. It was that or nothing, and father was getting tired. _You_ heard how he talked.”
The younger sister was still at the dressing-table diligently brus.h.i.+ng her s.h.i.+ning, curly tresses. She had regained her composure and was taking occasional furtive peeps at Mrs. Frank, now seated at the foot of the bed, busy with a b.u.t.tonhook and the adjustment of a pair of very dainty boots of white kid, whose b.u.t.tons gleamed like pearls. The mates to them, half a size smaller, peeped from the tray of Nita's new trunk.
There came a footstep and a rap at the door. ”See what it is, Nita, there's a love--I don't want to hop.”
It was a card--a new arrival at the hotel.
”Gentleman said he'd wait in the parlor 'm,” said the bellboy, and vanished. Nita glanced at the card and instant trouble stood in her paling face. Silently Mrs. Garrison held out her hand, took the card, and one quick look. The b.u.t.tonhook dropped from her relaxed fingers. The card read:
”Mr. Gouverneur Prime.”
For a second or two the sisters gazed at each other in silence.
At last the elder spoke: ”In heaven's name, what brings that absurd boy back here? I thought him safe in Europe.”
CHAPTER IX.
One of the most charming writers of our day and generation has declared that ”the truest blessing a girl can have” is ”the ingenuous devotion of a young boy's heart.” Nine mothers in ten will probably take issue with the gifted author on that point, and though no longer a young girl in years whatever she might be in looks, Margaret Garrison would gladly have sent the waiting gentlemen to the right about, for, though he was only twenty, ”Gov” Prime, as a junior at Columbia, had been ingenuously devoted to the little lady from the very first evening he saw her. A boy of frank, impulsive nature was ”Gov”--a boy still in spite of the budding mustache, the twenty summers and the barely pa.s.sed ”exam” that wound up the junior year and ent.i.tled him to sit with the seniors when the great university opened its doors in October. Studies he hated, but tennis, polo, cricket, riding and dancing were things he loved and excelled in.
Much of his boyhood had been spent at one of those healthy, hearty English schools where all that would cultivate physical and mental manhood was a.s.siduously practiced, and all that would militate against them was as rigorously ”tabooed.”
At the coming of his twentieth birthday that summer his father had handed him his check for five thousand dollars--the paternal expression of satisfaction that his boy had never smoked pipe, cigar or cigarette--and the same week ”Gov” had carried off the blue ribbon with the racquet, and the second prize with the single sculls. It was during the ”exams,” the first week in June, when dropping in for five o'clock tea on some girls whom he had known for years, he was presented to this witching little creature whose name he didn't even catch. ”We met her away out at an army post in Wyoming when papa took us to California last year,” was whispered to him, ”and they entertained us so cordially, and of course we said if ever you come to New York you must be sure to let us know--and she did--but--” and there his informant paused, dubious. Other callers came in and it began to rain--a sudden, drenching shower, and the little stranger from the far West saw plainly enough that her hostesses, though presenting their friends after our cheery American fas.h.i.+on, were unable to show her further attention, and the newly presented--almost all women, said ”so very pleased” but failed to look it, or otherwise to manifest their pleasure. She _couldn't_ go in the rain. The butler had 'phoned for a cab. She wouldn't sit there alone and neglected. She deliberately signaled Mr. Prime. ”The ladies are all busy,” she said, with a charmingly appealing smile, ”but I know you can tell me. I have to dress for dinner after I get home, and must be at One Hundred and Tenth Street at 7:30. How long will it take a carriage to drive me there? Oh, is that your society pin? Why, are _you_ still in college? Why, I thought----”
That cab was twenty-five minutes coming, and when it came Mr. Prime went with it and her, whom he had not left an instant from the moment of her question. Moreover, he discovered she was nervous about taking that carriage drive all alone away up to One Hundred and Tenth Street, yet what other way could a girl go in dinner dress. He left her at her door with a reluctantly given permission to return in an hour and escort her to the distant home of her friends and entertainers. He drove to the Waldorf and had a light dinner with a half pint of Hock, devoured her with his eyes as they drove rapidly northward, went to a Harlem theater while she dined and forgot him, and was at the carriage door when she came forth to be driven home. Seven hours or less ”had done the business,” so far as Gouverneur Prime was concerned.
It was the boy's first wild infatuation--as mad, unreasoning, absurd, yet intense as was ever that of Arthur Pendennis for the lovely Fotheringay.
Margaret Garrison had never seen or known the like of it. She had fascinated others for a time, had kindled love, pa.s.sion and temporary devotion, but this--this was wors.h.i.+p, and it was something so sweet to her jaded senses, something so rich and spontaneous that she gave herself up for a day or two to the delight of studying it. Here was a glorious young athlete whose eyes followed her every move and gesture, who hung about her in utter captivation, whose voice trembled and whose eyes implored, yet whose strong, brown, shapely hand never dared so much as touch hers, except when she extended it in greeting. He was to accompany his father and sister to Europe in a week, so what harm was there: He would forget all about it. He knew now she was married. He was presented to Nita, but had hardly a word and never a look for her when Margaret was near. He was dumb and miserable all the day they drove in the park and later dined at Delmonico's with Colonel Frost. He was sick, even when mounted on his favorite English thoroughbred and scampering about the bridle path for peeps at the drives, when she was at the park again with that gray-haired reprobate, that money shark, Cashton--a Wall Street broker black-balled at every decent club in New York. Why should she go with him? He had been most kind, she said, in the advice and aid he had given her in the investment of her little fortune. She told the lie with downcast eyes and cheeks that burned, for most of that little fortune was already frittered away, and Cashton's reports seemed to require many personal visits that had set tongues wagging at the hotel, so much frequented of the Army, where she had taken a room until Nita should have been graduated and they could go to the seash.o.r.e. She had promised to be at home to her boy adorer that very evening and to go with him to Daly's, and he had secured the seats four days ahead. Poor ”Gov” had trotted swiftly home from the park, striving to comfort himself over his bath and irreproachable evening clothes, that _there_, with her by his side, the wild jealousy of the day would vanish. Sharply on time he had sent up his card and listened, incredulous, to the reply: ”Mrs. Garrison has not yet returned.” He would wait, he said, and did wait, biting his nails, treading the floor, fuming in doubt and despair until nearly ten, when a carriage dashed up to the ladies' entrance and that vile Cashton handed her out, escorted her in and vanished. She came hurrying to her boy lover with both little hands outstretched, with a face deeply flushed and words of pleading and distress rus.h.i.+ng from her lips. ”Indeed I could not help it, Gov,” she cried. ”I told him of my engagement and said we must not go so far, but away at the north end something happened, I don't know what, a wheel was bent and the harness wrenched by too short a turn on a stone post at a corner. Something had to be repaired. They said it wouldn't take ten minutes, and he led me out and up to the piazza of that big hotel--you know, we saw it the day I drove with you--” (”He was a blackguard to take you there!” burst in Prime, the blood boiling in his veins.) ”Then we waited and waited and he went to hurry them, and then he came back and said they had found more serious damages--that it would take an hour, and meantime dinner had been ordered and was served. He had telephoned to you and the butler had answered all right.” ”He's a double-dyed liar!” raved ”Gov,” furiously. ”And so what could I do, Gov?
The dinner was delicious, but I couldn't eat a mouthful.” (This time it wasn't Cashton who lied). ”I was worrying about you, and--and--about myself, too, Gov. I had set my heart on going with you. It was to be almost our last evening. Oh, if you only didn't have to sail Sat.u.r.day, and could be here next week, you dear boy, you should have no cause for complaint! Won't you try to forgive me?”
And, actually, tears stood in her eyes, as again she held out both hands.
They were the only people in the parlor, and in an instant, with quick, sudden, irresistible action he had clasped and drawn her to his breast, and though she hid her face and struggled, pa.s.sionate kisses were printed on her disheveled hair. It was the first time he had dared.
And then he did not sail Sat.u.r.day. Prime Senior was held by most important business. They gave up the Sat.u.r.day Cunarder and took the midweek White Star, and those four additional days riveted poor ”Gov's”
chains and left her well-nigh breathless with excitement. The strain had been intense. It was all she could do to make the boy try to behave in a rational way in the presence of others. When alone with her he raved. A fearful load was lifted from her spare little shoulders when the Teutonic sailed. Even Nita had worried and had seen her sister's worry. Then no sooner did ”Gov” reach Europe than he began writing impa.s.sioned letters by every steamer, but that wasn't so bad. She had several masculine correspondents, some of whom wrote as often as Frank, but none of whom, to do her justice, got letters as often as he did, which, however, was saying little, for she hated writing. ”Gov” was to have stayed abroad three months, piloting the pater and sister about the scenes so familiar to him, but they saw how nervous and unhappy he was. They knew he was writing constantly to some one. Mildred had long since divined that there was a girl at the bottom of it all, and longed and strove to find out who she was. Through the last of June and all through July he resolutely stood to his promise and did his best to be loving and brotherly to a loving and devoted sister and dutiful to a most indulgent father. But he grew white and worn and haggard, he who had been such a picture of rugged health, and, in her utter innocence and ignorance as to the being on whom her brother had lavished the wealth of his love, Mildred began to ask herself should she not urge her father to let ”Gov” return to America. At last, one sweet July evening, late in the month, the brother and sister were wandering along the lovely sh.o.r.e of Lucerne. He had been unusually fitful, restless and moody all day. No letter had reached him in over a fortnight, and he was miserably unhappy. They stopped at a gra.s.sy bank that ran down to the rippling water's edge, and she seated herself on a stone ledge, while in reckless abandonment he threw himself full length on the dewy gra.s.s. Instantly the last doubt vanished. Bending over him, her soft hand caressing his hair, she whispered: ”Gov, dear boy, is it so very hard? Would you like to go to her at once?”
And the boy buried his face in her lap, twined his arms about her slender waist, and almost groaned aloud as he answered. ”For pity's sake help me if you can, Mildred, I'm almost mad.”
Early in August the swiftest steamer of the line was splitting the Atlantic surges and driving hard for home, with ”Gov” cursing her for a ca.n.a.l boat. The day after he reached New York he had traced and followed the White Sisters to West Point, and Margaret Garrison stared in mingled delight, triumph and dismay at the card in her hand. Delight that she could show these exclusive Pointers that the heir to one of the oldest and best names in Gotham's Four Hundred was a slave to her beck and call.