The Dust Flower Part 36

Arrived in East Sixty-seventh Street she went in with Letty and had tea. But it was she who sat in dear Mrs. Allerton's corner of the sofa, and when William brought in the tray she said, "Put it here, William," as one who speaks with authority. Of this usurpation of the right to dispense hospitality Letty did not see the significance, being glad to have it taken off her hands.

Not so, however, with Steptoe who came in with a covered dish of m.u.f.fins. Having placed it before Miss Walbrook he turned to Letty.

"Madam ain't feelin' well?"

Letty's tone expressed her surprise. "Why, yes."

"Madam'll excuse me. As madam ain't presidin' at 'er own tyble I was afryde----"

It being unnecessary to say more he tiptoed out, leaving behind him a declaration of war, which Miss Walbrook, without saying anything in words, was not slow to pick up. "Insufferable," was her comment to herself. Of the hostile forces against her this, she knew, was the most powerful.

Neither did Rash perceive the significance of Barbara's place at the tea-table when he entered about five o'clock, though she was quick to perceive the significance of his arrival. It was not, however, a point to note outwardly, so that she lifted her hand above the tea-kettle, letting him bend over it, as she exclaimed:

"Welcome to our city! Do sit down and make yourself at home. Letty and I have been for a drive, and are all ready to enjoy a little male society."

The easy tone helped Allerton over his embarra.s.sment, first in finding the two women face to face, then in coming so unexpectedly face to face with them, and lastly in being caught by Barbara coming home at this unexpected hour. Knowing what the situation must mean to her he admired her the more for her sangfroid and social flexibility.

She took all the difficulties on herself. "Letty and I have been making friends, and are going to know each other awfully well, aren't we?" A smile at Letty drew forth Letty's smile, to Rashleigh's satisfaction, and somewhat to his bewilderment. But Barbara, handing him a cup of tea, addressed him directly. "Who do you think is engaged? Guess."

He guessed, and guessed wrong. He guessed a second time, and guessed wrong. There followed a conversation about people they knew, with regard to which Letty was altogether an outsider. Now and then she recognized great names which she had read in the papers, tossed back and forth without prefixes of Mr. or Miss, and often with pet diminutives. The whole represented a closed corporation of intimacies into which she could no more force her way than a worm into a billiard ball. Rash who was at first beguiled by the interchange of personalities began to experience a sense of discomfort that Letty should be so discourteously left out; but Barbara knew that it was best for both to force the lesson home. Rash must be given to understand how lost he would be with any outsider as his companion; and Letty must be made to realize how hopelessly an outsider she would always be.

But no lesson should be urged to the quick at a single sitting, so that Barbara broke off suddenly to ask why he had come home. In the same way as she had given the order to William she spoke with the authority of one at liberty to ask the question. Not to give the real reason he said that it was to write a letter and change his clothes.

"And you're going back to the Club?"

He replied that he was going to dine with a bachelor friend at his apartment.

"Then I'll wait and drop you at the Club. You can go on from there afterwards. I've got the time."

This too was said with an authority against which he felt himself unable to appeal.

Having written a note and changed to his dinner jacket he rejoined them in the drawing-room. Barbara held out her hand to Letty, with a briskness indicating relief.

"So glad we had our drive. I shall come soon again. I wish it could be to-morrow, but my aunt will be using the car."

"There's my car," Allerton suggested.

"Oh, so there is." Barbara took this proposal as a matter of course.

"Then we'll say to-morrow. I'll call up Eugene and tell him when to come for me."

With Allerton beside her, and driving down Fifth Avenue, she said: "I see how to do it, Rash. You must leave it to me."

He replied in the tone of a child threatened with the loss of his role in a game. "I can't leave it to you altogether."

"Then leave it to me as much as you can. I see what to do and you don't. Furthermore, I know just how to do it."

"You're wonderful, Barbe," he said, humbly.

"I'm wonderful so long as you don't interfere with me."

"Oh, well, I shan't do that."

She turned to him sharply. "Is that a promise?"

"Why do you want a promise?" he asked, in some wonder.

"Because I do."

"That is, you can't trust me."

"My dear Rash, who _could_ trust you after what----?"

"Oh, well, then, I promise."

"Then that's understood. And if anything happens, you won't go hedging and saying you didn't mean it in that way?"

"It seems to me you're very suspicious."

"One's obliged to foresee everything with you, Rash. It isn't as if one was dealing with an ordinary man."

"You mean that I'm to give you carte blanche, and have no will of my own at all."

"I mean that when I'm so reasonable, you must try to be reasonable on your side."

"Well, I will."

As they drew up in front of the New Netherlands Club, he escaped without committing himself further.

If he dined with a bachelor friend that night he must have cut the evening short, for at half past nine he re-entered the back drawing-room where Letty was sitting before the fire, her red book in her lap. She sat as a lover stands at a tryst as to which there is no positive engagement. To fortify herself against disappointment she had been trying to persuade herself that he wouldn't come, and that she didn't expect him.

He came, but he came as a man who has something on his mind. Almost without greeting he sat down, took the book from her lap and proceeded to look up the place at which he had left off.

"Miss Walbrook's lovely, isn't she?" she said, before he had found the page.

"She's a very fine woman," he a.s.sented. "Do you remember where we stopped?"

"It was at, 'So let it be, said the little mermaid, turning pale as death.' You know her very well, don't you?"

"Oh, very well indeed. I think we begin here: 'But you will have to pay me also----'"

"Have you known her very long?"

"All my life, more or less."

"She says she knows the girl you're engaged to."

"Yes, of course. We all know each other in our little set. Now, if you're ready, I'll begin to read."

"'But you will have to pay me also,' said the witch; 'and it is not a little that I ask. Yours is the loveliest voice in the world, and you trust to that, I dare say, to charm your love. But you must give it to me. For my costly drink I claim the best thing you possess. I shall give you my own blood, so that my draught may be as sharp as a two-edged sword.' 'But if you take my voice from me, what have I left?' asked the little mermaid, piteously. 'Your loveliness, your graceful movements, your speaking eyes. Those are enough to win a man's heart. Well, is your courage gone? Stretch out your little tongue, that I may cut it off, and you shall have my magic potion.' 'I consent,' said the little mermaid."