The Custom of the Country Part 11

"Rake up? That's the idea, is it? Was that why you tried to cut me last night?"

"I--oh, Elmer! I didn't mean to; only, you see, I'm engaged."

"Oh, I saw that fast enough. I'd have seen it even if I didn't read the papers." He gave a short laugh. "He was feeling pretty good, sitting there alongside of you, wasn't he? I don't wonder he was. I remember.

But I don't see that that was a reason for cold-shouldering me. I'm a respectable member of society now--I'm one of Harmon B. Driscoll's private secretaries." He brought out the fact with mock solemnity.

But to Undine, though undoubtedly impressive, the statement did not immediately present itself as a subject for pleasantry.

"Elmer Moffatt--you ARE?"

He laughed again. "Guess you'd have remembered me last night if you'd known it."

She was following her own train of thought with a look of pale intensity. "You're LIVING in New York, then--you're going to live here right along?"

"Well, it looks that way; as long as I can hang on to this job. Great men always gravitate to the metropolis. And I gravitated here just as Uncle Harmon B. was looking round for somebody who could give him an inside tip on the Eubaw mine deal--you know the Driscolls are pretty deep in Eubaw. I happened to go out there after our little unpleasantness at Apex, and it was just the time the deal went through.

So in one way your folks did me a good turn when they made Apex too hot for me: funny to think of, ain't it?"

Undine, recovering herself, held out her hand impulsively.

"I'm real glad of it--I mean I'm real glad you've had such a stroke of luck!"

"Much obliged," he returned. "By the way, you might mention the fact to Abner E. Spragg next time you run across him."

"Father'll be real glad too, Elmer." She hesitated, and then went on: "You must see now that it was natural father and mother should have felt the way they did--"

"Oh, the only thing that struck me as unnatural was their making you feel so too. But I'm free to admit I wasn't a promising case in those days." His glance played over her for a moment. "Say, Undine--it was good while it lasted, though, wasn't it?"

She shrank back with a burning face and eyes of misery.

"Why, what's the matter? That ruled out too? Oh, all right. Look at here, Undine, suppose you let me know what you ARE here to talk about, anyhow."

She cast a helpless glance down the windings of the wooded glen in which they had halted.

"Just to ask you--to beg you--not to say anything of this kind again--EVER--"

"Anything about you and me?"

She nodded mutely.

"Why, what's wrong? Anybody been saying anything against me?"

"Oh, no. It's not that!"

"What on earth is it, then--except that you're ashamed of me, one way or another?" She made no answer, and he stood digging the tip of his walking-stick into a fissure of the asphalt. At length he went on in a tone that showed a first faint trace of irritation: "I don't want to break into your gilt-edged crowd, if it's that you're scared of."

His tone seemed to increase her distress. "No, no--you don't understand.

All I want is that nothing shall be known."

"Yes; but WHY? It was all straight enough, if you come to that."

"It doesn't matter ... whether it was straight ... or ... not ..." He interpolated a whistle which made her add: "What I mean is that out here in the East they don't even like it if a girl's been ENGAGED before."

This last strain on his credulity wrung a laugh from Moffatt. "Gee!

How'd they expect her fair young life to pa.s.s? Playing 'Holy City' on the melodeon, and knitting tidies for church fairs?"

"Girls are looked after here. It's all different. Their mothers go round with them."

This increased her companion's hilarity and he glanced about him with a pretense of compunction. "Excuse ME! I ought to have remembered. Where's your chaperon, Miss Spragg?" He crooked his arm with mock ceremony.

"Allow me to escort you to the bew-fay. You see I'm onto the New York style myself."

A sigh of discouragement escaped her. "Elmer--if you really believe I never wanted to act mean to you, don't you act mean to me now!"

"Act mean?" He grew serious again and moved nearer to her. "What is it you want, Undine? Why can't you say it right out?"

"What I told you. I don't want Ralph Marvell--or any of them--to know anything. If any of his folks found out, they'd never let him marry me--never! And he wouldn't want to: he'd be so horrified. And it would KILL me, Elmer--it would just kill me!"

She pressed close to him, forgetful of her new reserves and repugnances, and impelled by the pa.s.sionate absorbing desire to wring from him some definite pledge of safety.

"Oh, Elmer, if you ever liked me, help me now, and I'll help you if I get the chance!"

He had recovered his coolness as hers forsook her, and stood his ground steadily, though her entreating hands, her glowing face, were near enough to have shaken less st.u.r.dy nerves.

"That so, Puss? You just ask me to pa.s.s the sponge over Elmer Moffatt of Apex City? Cut the gentleman when we meet? That the size of it?"

"Oh, Elmer, it's my first chance--I can't lose it!" she broke out, sobbing.

"Nonsense, child! Of course you shan't. Here, look up. Undine--why, I never saw you cry before. Don't you be afraid of me--_I_ ain't going to interrupt the wedding march." He began to whistle a bar of Lohengrin. "I only just want one little promise in return."

She threw a startled look at him and he added rea.s.suringly: "Oh, don't mistake me. I don't want to b.u.t.t into your set--not for social purposes, anyhow; but if ever it should come handy to know any of 'em in a business way, would you fix it up for me--AFTER YOU'RE MARRIED?'"

Their eyes met, and she remained silent for a tremulous moment or two; then she held out her hand. "Afterward--yes. I promise. And YOU promise, Elmer?"

"Oh, to have and to hold!" he sang out, swinging about to follow her as she hurriedly began to retrace her steps.

The March twilight had fallen, and the Stentorian facade was all aglow, when Undine regained its monumental threshold. She slipped through the marble vestibule and soared skyward in the mirror-lined lift, hardly conscious of the direction she was taking. What she wanted was solitude, and the time to put some order into her thoughts; and she hoped to steal into her room without meeting her mother. Through her thick veil the cl.u.s.ters of lights in the Spragg drawing-room dilated and flowed together in a yellow blur, from which, as she entered, a figure detached itself; and with a start of annoyance she saw Ralph Marvell rise from the perusal of the "fiction number" of a magazine which had replaced "The Hound of the Baskervilles" on the onyx table.

"Yes; you told me not to come--and here I am." He lifted her hand to his lips as his eyes tried to find hers through the veil.

She drew back with a nervous gesture. "I told you I'd be awfully late."

"I know--trying on! And you're horribly tired, and wishing with all your might I wasn't here."

"I'm not so sure I'm not!" she rejoined, trying to hide her vexation in a smile.

"What a tragic little voice! You really are done up. I couldn't help dropping in for a minute; but of course if you say so I'll be off." She was removing her long gloves and he took her hands and drew her close.

"Only take off your veil, and let me see you."

A quiver of resistance ran through her: he felt it and dropped her hands.