Part 67 (1/2)

Mrs. Willard excused herself, ostensibly to speak to a maid; in reality to speak to a telephone. On her return she made a frontal attack:--

”Norrie, what made you break your engagement to Will Douglas?”

”Why? Don't you approve?”

”Did you break it for the same reason that drove you into it?”

”What reason do you think drove me into it?”

”Hal Surtaine.”

”He didn't!” she denied furiously.

”And you didn't break it because of him?”

”No! I broke it because I don't want to get married,” cried the girl in a rush of words. ”Not to Will Douglas. Or to--to anybody. Why should I?

I don't want to--I won't,” she continued, half laughing, half sobbing, ”go and have to bother about running a house and have a lot of babies and lose my pretty figure--and get fat--and dowdy--and slow-poky--and old. Look at Molly Vane: twins already. She's a horrible example. Why do people always have to have children--”

She stopped, abruptly, herself stricken at the stricken look in the other's face. ”Oh, Jinny, darling Jinny,” she gasped; ”I forgot! Your baby. Your little, dead baby! I'm a fool; a poor little silly fool, chattering of realities that I know nothing about.”

”You will know some day, my dear,” said the other woman, smiling valiantly. ”Don't deny the greatest reality of all, when it comes. Are you sure you're not denying it now?”

The sunbeams crept and sparkled, like light upon ruffled waters, across Esme's obstinately shaken head.

”Perhaps you couldn't help hurting him. But be sure you aren't hurting yourself, too.”

”That's the worst of it,” said the girl, with one of her sudden accesses of sweet candor. ”I needn't have hurt him at all. I was stupid.” She paused in her revelation. ”But he was stupider,” she declared vindictively; ”so it serves him right.”

”How was he stupider?”

”He thought,” said Esme with sorrowful solemnity, ”that I was just as bad as I seemed. He ought to have known me better.”

The older woman bent and laid a cheek against the sunny hair. ”And weren't you just as bad as you seemed?”

”Worse! Anyway, I'm afraid so,” said the confessional voice, rather m.u.f.fled in tone. ”But I--I just got led into it. Oh, Jinny, I'm not awfully happy.”

Mrs. Willard's head went up and she c.o.c.ked an attentive ear, like an expectant robin. ”Some one outside,” said she. ”I'll be back in a moment. You sit there and think it over.”

Esme curled back on the divan. A minute later she heard the curtains part at the end of the dim room, and glanced up with a smile, to face, not Jeannette Willard, but Hal Surtaine.

”You 'phoned for me, Lady Jinny,” he began: and then, with a start, ”Esme! I--I didn't expect to find you here.”

”Nor I to see you,” she said, with a calmness that belied her beating heart. ”Sit down, please. I have something to tell you. It's what I really came to the office to say.”

”Yes?”

”About Kathleen Pierce.”

Hal frowned. ”Do you think there can be any use--”