At the Age of Eve Part 25

Mr. Maxwell is a great friend of Richard's, strange as it may seem that two such incompatible natures should find so much in common; and, being heir to his mother's fortune, is such a desirable catch that Mrs. Chalmers frequently has him down here, hoping that he and Evelyn will take a fancy to each other. Richard told me this, quite simply.

Evelyn wears her prettiest gowns and uses her softest tones when he is around, but she is no more interested in him than she is in any other man. In fact, she is too well brought-up to display any preference in her marriage. Whatever her mother arranges for her will be entirely satisfactory.

And as for Mr. Maxwell--but that brings me up to a mention of the other guest here now, and it is surprising that I have not said something about her before, for she and I have been great friends from the day I arrived.

It is amazing that people can get so well acquainted in such a short s.p.a.ce of time when they are staying together in the same house, yet when neither of them is what you would call "easy to get acquainted with." I am not, I know, and I feel equally as sure that Sophie is the same way, yet you will notice that sometimes when two such diffident people are thrown together they will take a liking to each other right away.

It was this way with Sophie Chalmers and me. She is Richard's cousin and lives in some vague place "out west." She happened to be visiting some of the other Chalmers relatives in a near-by town for a few weeks this fall and I think Mrs. Chalmers must have felt that if she had to invite her it would be less trouble to have her when there were other guests, so she asked her to come and spend the Thanksgiving holidays with them. If the girl had been less obviously a sort of "poor relation" (though by no means looking the part) or if Mrs.

Chalmers had not tried so persistently to keep her in the background the "unexpected" which happened in this case would have been less surprising.

For Mr. Maxwell had no more than walked into the drawing-room and been presented to her than he fell in love with her; and, like most merry-eyed people, he fell very deeply in love.

Even their meeting was most unusual--dramatic, you might call it. And, as it took place at the moment of our arrival, it served to divert somewhat the attention from my disheveled looks, which had been such a shock to Richard. "Mr. Maxwell--Miss Chalmers," some one had said, as we all pa.s.sed into the house and the tall, rather tired-looking girl unfolded herself from one of the big chairs drawn up close to the hearth. She showed no surprise as she extended her hand to the new arrival, but Mr. Maxwell looked at her for a moment as he held her hand in his; then he asked quite simply: "Where have we met before?"

The question was so earnest and so direct that the girl's face flushed, but before she could even start to offer a suggestion as to whether they had met before or had not, Mrs. Chalmers hastily put in that there was little probability of a former meeting, inasmuch as Sophie had not been in this part of the country in several years.

"We have certainly met before," Mr. Maxwell persisted, his eyes still fastened on Sophie's face, and running his fingers through his hair, along the line of the scar, as if that could help him in remembering.

"I am certain of that. And I should surely not be so discourteous as to acknowledge that I have forgotten--except there are so many things hazy in my mind--since that night just outside El Paso."

I, too, was watching Sophie intently, as we all were, and I saw her eyes wander to the scar along his forehead. She looked away, but in another moment had returned to it again, as if the queer little white line held a fascination for her. At his mention of El Paso she gave a distinct start, but regained her equilibrium almost immediately.

"I must be a very common-looking person," she said with a little laugh, turning to me as she spoke, "for I seldom meet a stranger who doesn't know some one whom I am so exactly like that the resemblance is startling!"

We had all moved about a little from the positions into which Mr.

Maxwell's first earnest words had petrified us, and Mrs. Chalmers was beginning to say something about taking us to our rooms, when that persevering young man spoke again. He had not moved an inch, but stood there in the middle of the floor, his eyes fastened on Sophie's face.

"It's not your looks, that is, your looks are not so convincing as your--your voice," he said, his expression still showing his bewildered surprise; but something in the girl's face must have pleaded with him to change the subject, which he did, easily.

"Well, don't you think the scar adds to my list of attractions?" he asked banteringly, as he turned to Mrs. Chalmers, who beamed approval upon him. "The girls all think I acquired it in some brave, though mysterious, manner--those who don't know that I got my sky-piece cracked in a wreck in Texas last year."

From that hour he began a course of small attentions, minor courtesies, but none the less meaning, all of which have been calculated to make Sophie regard him with quite a degree of favorable interest, and if I am not mistaken none of these calculations has failed to hit the mark. But since their first meeting I have only once heard him refer to that unusual resemblance she bears to some one whom he has known; and I am sure he found the impulse then to speak so strong and sudden that the words were out before he had time to think, for Sophie so clearly disliked a mention of the subject. This proves to me that they have known each other in some mysterious manner, but as she has never told me the secret, of course I have never questioned her.

Last night at the dinner table was when it came about, and, when I think it over, it was a ludicrous happening rather than a sentimental or even mysterious one. Mrs. Chalmers had been holding forth upon some Scriptural interpretations which her beloved pastor has recently made use of in his sermons, and, among others, the casting of pearls before swine was brought forward for discussion.

From the moment the word "swine" was mentioned Mr. Maxwell's face took on its bewildered look and he fixed his eyes on Sophie with that same intensity of expression which they have worn so often this last week.

Suddenly he seemed to remember what his mind was so evidently searching for.

"Swine! _Pigs!_" he blurted out, in such a startled way that we all instinctively stopped eating to await developments. "_That's_ what I heard you--or the girl with your voice--saying that night. I remember it distinctly now! It was hot--heavens, how hot it was!--and there was a fierce pain in my head for some reason; but I heard your voice, just a short distance away from me, saying: 'This little pig went to market, this little pig stayed at home; this little pig had--' and there you broke off, because you couldn't remember what it was the third little pig had. There was a peevish child's voice crying: 'Tell little pigs! Tell little pigs,' and then a man's voice, trying to help you out. You asked the man, '_Do_ you know what the third little pig had--or did?' But he couldn't remember either. He began saying the doggerel over again, 'This little pig went to market; this little pig stayed at home; this little pig had--'

"'Roast beef, d.a.m.n you,' I hollered, for somehow I wasn't as near being dead as you thought. 'Roast beef, but you needn't stand outside my door rehashing it all night. Then you and the man laughed in a surprised, though subdued way, and walked away from me, although I didn't hear the sound of footsteps."

His scar showed very white as he finished this queer little story; and he looked at Sophie almost beseechingly. He had the appearance of a man groping about in the dark.

Sophie, too, was clearly embarra.s.sed, but said nothing by way of explanation; and, ridiculous as the incident was, not one of us even smiled.

There was a heavy, tense silence about the board for a moment, then Richard spoke.

"Upon my word, but this is interesting," he said, in a slow, sarcastic drawl. "Sophie, have you been traveling in vaudeville?"

As we left the dining-room one of the servants told Richard that there was a long-distance call for him, a bit of news which brought a frown to my lord's handsome face.

"Well, tell 'em I can't be found," he commanded briefly, as he caught the extreme tip of my elbow and began steering our course toward the library. We usually had a few short minutes alone there after dinner.

"The operator has already told the party that you are here, Mr.

Chalmers," the colored boy answered, looking embarra.s.sed and trying to slink away into the back hall as soon as he could.

"The devil!" Richard exclaimed, under his breath, but he loosed his hold upon my arm as we reached the foot of the steps, and he suggested that I run on up-stairs and wait until I thought he had had time to finish his conversation, then come back and join him in the library.

"If you mix up with them in the drawing-room now you can't find an excuse to get up and leave when I have finished," he explained, and I smiled a happy a.s.sent.

Sophie, too, had gone to her room for a few minutes after dinner, and, as she heard me stirring around in mine, she called at my open door to say that she wanted my advice about something.

"Come in, by all means," I bade her. "I have lots of advice."

"It's about a dress for the ball to-morrow night," she said, holding over her arm a dainty gown of soft white silk. She spread the garment out upon my bed, then stood off a few steps and looked at it. "Do you think it will do?" she finally asked.

"Do? Why, I think it's lovely!" I declared truthfully.

"Well, I want to look lovely," she answered, with a queer little smile, but as she sat down on the bed and picked up a bit of chiffon flounce in the neck of the gown, she looked up at me again, with an expression of almost tragedy in her eyes. "But I have no gloves that are long enough and clean enough to wear with this!"

"Well, wear a pair of mine, then," I began, noting that her hands and mine are about the same size, but before I could suggest this she had interrupted me.

"I didn't come in here for _that_," she exclaimed, rather haughtily, throwing back her head a little and looking me squarely in the eyes.

"I wanted to talk with you a little because you don't seem so oppressively elegant and _rich_, you know--"

"I am not in the least rich," I a.s.sured her comfortingly. "Nearly all my gloves have been _cleaned_."

I hastily threw up the top of my trunk and scrambled around for my glove box.

"See!" I exclaimed, holding up a pair that she had seen me working on the day before. "They _look_ as good as new, but whew! it would take one of your Texas cyclones to blow the smell of gasolene out!"

"One of _my_ Texas cyclones?" She looked surprised, but I fancied that she was pleased. "Who told you that I live in Texas?"

"n.o.body that I remember; yet I got it into my head somehow that you live in Texas."

"I do. I live in El Paso," she threw aside the flounce of chiffon which she was still fingering and started to her feet. I was standing in front of her with the pair of freshly cleaned gloves in my hand.

"Ann, I hate lying, and I am going to tell you something, for I can't keep up this deception any longer. I don't care what Aunt Ida says."

There was a quick rap at the door at this most interesting juncture and Evelyn stuck her head in.

"Ann," she said, glancing quickly at us both and seeming a little surprised to see us closeted together in this familiar fashion.

"Richard has just had a long-distance message from the city. He has to go up there to-night on business and he wants to know if you'll let him come up to your door and say good-by?"

CHAPTER XIV