The Fighting Shepherdess Part 27

Toomey adroitly selected the stockings which needed the least darning from her basket of mending, the latter came nearer really liking Priscilla Pantin than she had since she had known her.

Mrs. Pantin exhibited a completed spray for Mrs. Toomey's approval and commented upon the swiftness with which time sped in congenial company.

A delightful afternoon was especially appreciated in a community where there were so few with whom one could really unbend and talk freely--to all of which Mrs. Toomey agreed thoroughly, understanding, as she did, what Mrs. Pantin meant exactly.

"Even in a small community one must keep up the social bars and preserve the traditions of one's up-bringing, mustn't one?"

"One is apt to become lax, too democratic--it's the tendency of this western country," Mrs. Toomey a.s.sented. She felt very exclusive and elegant at the moment.

Mrs. Pantin's eyes had been upon her work, now she raised them and looked at Mrs. Toomey squarely.

"Have you seen--a--Miss Prentice lately?"

Mrs. Toomey had the physical sensation of her heart flopping over. That was it, then! She had the feeling of having been trapped--hopelessly cornered. In a mental panic she answered:

"Not lately."

"Are you expecting to see much of her?"

There was something portentous in the sweetness with which Mrs. Pantin asked the question.

It was a crisis--not only the test of her promised friendship and loyalty to Kate but to her own character and courage. Was she strong enough to meet it?

It was one of Mrs. Toomey's misfortunes to be not only self-a.n.a.lytical, but honest. She had no hallucinations whatever regarding her own weaknesses and shortcomings. As she called a spade a spade, so she knew herself to be by instinct and early training a toady. Of the same type, in appearance and characteristics, in this trait, lay the main difference in the two women: while Mrs. Pantin with her better intelligence was intensely selfish, Mrs. Toomey's dominant trait was a moral cowardice that made her a natural sycophant.

No quaking soldier ever exerted more will power to go into battle than did Mrs. Toomey to answer:

"I hope so."

Mrs. Pantin's bright blue eyes sharpened. "Ah-h, they must have money!"

she reflected. Aloud she said:

"Really?"

"Certainly."

This was mutiny. Mrs. Pantin lifted a spa.r.s.e eyebrow--the one which the application of a burnt match improved wonderfully.

"Do you think that's--wise?"

Mrs. Toomey had a notion that if she attempted to stand her legs would behave like two sticks of wet macaroni, yet she questioned defiantly:

"Why not?"

Undoubtedly they had made a raise somewhere!

"Why--my dear--her reputation!"

"She doesn't know any more about that murder than we do," bluntly.

"I wasn't referring to the murder--her morals."

"I don't question them, either."

"You are very charitable, Delia. She lived alone with Mormon Joe, didn't she?"

A frost seemed suddenly to have touched the perfect friendship between these kindred spirits.

"I'm merely just," Mrs. Toomey retorted, though her heart was beating furiously. "All we know is hearsay."

With the restraint and sweetness of one who knows her power, Mrs. Pantin replied:

"I'm sure it's lovely of you to defend her."

"Not at all--I like her personally," Mrs. Toomey answered stoutly.

It was time to lay on the lash; Mrs. Pantin saw that clearly.

"Nevertheless, as a friend I wouldn't advise you to take her up--to--er--hobn.o.b with her." Mrs. Pantin did not like the word, but the occasion required vigorous language.

"I'm the best judge of that, Prissy." Her hands were icy.

"When you came to town a stranger I tried to guide you in social matters," Mrs. Pantin reminded her. "I told you whose call to return and whose not to--you found my judgment good, didn't you?"

"You've been more than kind," Mrs. Toomey murmured miserably, and added, "I'm so sorry for her."

"We all are that, Delia, but nevertheless I think you will do well to follow my suggestion in this matter."

Mrs. Toomey recognized the veiled threat instantly. It conveyed to her social ostracism--not being asked to serve on church committees--omitted when invitations for teas were being issued--cold-shouldered out of the Y.A.K. Society, which met monthly for purposes of mutual improvement--of being blackballed, perhaps, when she would become a Maccabee! She repressed a shudder; her work swam before her downcast eyes and she drew up the darn on the stocking she was repairing until it looked like a wen. The ordeal was worse than she had imagined it.

And how she hated Priscilla Pantin!

Always Mrs. Toomey had had a quaint conceit that if she listened attentively she would be able to hear Priscilla's heart jingling in her body--rattling like a bit of ice in a tin bucket. Now the woman's mean, chaste little soul laid bare before her filled Delia Toomey with a dumb fury.

Mrs. Pantin waited patiently for her answer, though the experience was a new one. Usually she had only to reach for the whip when her satellites mutinied; almost never was it necessary to crack it.

While Mrs. Toomey hesitated Mrs. Pantin folded her work--this, too, was significant.

Mrs. Toomey replied, finally, in desperation:

"I'll think over what you've said, Priscilla. I appreciate your intentions, thoroughly, believe me."

There was a cowed note in her voice which Mrs. Pantin detected. She smiled faintly.

"I don't know when I've spent such a delightful afternoon," and kissed her.

Mrs. Toomey curbed an impulse to bite her friend as she returned the parting salute.

"And I've so enjoyed having you," she murmured.