What Will People Say? Part 13

"I just wondered. She is to meet us here."

"When? In heaven's _name_! When?"

"She ought to be here now."

Alice thrust backward a palsied hand and, clutching the young man she had danced with, dragged him forward. He was shaking hands with Ten Eyck, and brought him along.

"Stowe! Stowe!" Alice exclaimed, with a tragic fire that did not greatly alarm the young man; he was apparently used to little else from her.

"Yes, dear," he answered, with a lofty sweetness; and she cried:

"Oh, honey, what _do_ you sup_pose_?"

"What, dear?"

"That awful Mother of mine is expected here any _moment_!"

The young man's majesty collapsed like an overblown balloon in one pop: "Lord!"

Tableau! Ten Eyck, seeing it, muttered, gloatingly:

"Some folks gits ketched."

Alice turned eyes of reproach upon him:

"She'll _kill_ us if she finds us together. Isn't there some other way out?"

"I could go down the stairs the waiters come up," said Stowe; "but how will you get home?"

"Oh, Mother will get me home all right, never fear!" said Alice. "Run for your _life_, honey. I'll have my maid call you on the 'phone later."

The young man gave her one long sad look fairly reeking with desperate kisses and embraces. Then he vanished into the crowd.

Alice must have remarked the comments in Forbes' eyes, for she turned to him:

"You mustn't misunderstand the poor boy, Mr. Forbes. Mr. Webb is as _brave_ as a _lion_, but he runs away on my account. He knows that my mother will give me no rest if she finds it out."

"I understand perfectly," said Forbes. "There are times when the better a soldier is the faster he runs!"

"Mr. Forbes is a soldier," Persis explained.

"Oh, thank you, twice as much!" said Alice, "for appreciating the situation." Then she turned to Persis, and clenched her arm as if she were about to implore some unheard-of mercy: "And, Oh, Miss Cabot, will you do me one _terribly_ great favor? I'll remember it to my _dying_ day, if you only will."

"Of course, my dear," Persis answered, with her usual serenity. "What is it? Do you want me to tell your mother that I met you somewhere and dragged you here against your will to meet her?"

Alice's wide eyes widened to the danger-point:

"Aren't you simply _wonderful_! How on earth could you possibly have ever _ever_ guessed it?"

Persis cast a sidelong glance at Forbes; it had all the effect of a wink without being so violent.

"I'm a mind-reader," she said.

Alice caught the glance but not the irony of it, and exclaimed:

"In_deed_ she is, Mr. Forbes. She really _is_."

"I know she is," said Forbes, with a quiet conviction that was almost more noisy than the violent emphasis of Alice.

Persis gave Forbes another sidelong glance; this time with a meek wonderment in place of irony. Once more the man had shown a kind of awe of her. Unwittingly he was attacking her on her most defenseless wall; for a woman who is always hearing praise of her beauty or her vivacity, so hungers and thirsts after some recognition of her intellectual existence that she is usually quite helpless before a tribute to it.

Persis knew that there was no importance in her guess at what Alice was about to ask; but there was importance in the high rating Forbes gave it. The comfort she found in this homage was put to flight by Alice's nails nipping her arm.

"Before mother comes we must rehea.r.s.e what we're to say. She thinks I went to one of those lectures on Current Topics. They're so very im_proving_ that Mother can't bear to go herself. She sends _me_ and then forgets to ask me what it was all about. So I sneaked it to-day and met Stowe."

Persis could not resist a motherly question: "Is this an ideal trysting-place, do you think?"

"Where's the harm? We couldn't go to the Park very well. Everybody's always going _by_ and looking _on_."

"Why don't you receive Mr. Webb at home?"

"Oh, _why_ don't I, indeed! Mother won't allow him within a _mile_ of the place. Didn't you know that?"

Persis shook her head and turned to Forbes: "Doesn't it sound old-fashioned, a young girl afraid of her parents?"

"Quite medieval," Forbes agreed.

"Oh, but you are quaint, Alice," Persis laughed. "I thought it only happened in books and plays, but here's Alice actually obeying a cruel order like that. I'd like to see my father try to boss me. I'd really enjoy it as a change."

Alice broke in: "Oh, fathers--they're different! My poor Daddelums was the sweetest thing on earth. I wrapped him round my little finger. But mother--umm, she gets her own way, I can tell you--at least she _thinks_ she does. I wouldn't let _any_ earthly power tear me away from my darling Stowe, but I don't dare face her down."

"I thought she always liked Mr. Webb?" Persis said.

"Oh, she did till his father's will was probated. His insurance was immense, but his debts were immenser. So poor Stowe is dumped upon the world with hardly a cent. Of course, I love him all the more; but mother has turned against him. I wouldn't mind starving with Stowe, but mother is _so_ materialistic! She wants to marry me off to that dreadful old Senator Tait."

"Dreadful?" snorted Winifred, who had listened in silence. "Old? Senator Tait is neither dreadful nor old. He is a cavalier, and in the prime of his powers."

"You can have him!" snapped Alice, with a flare of temper that she regretted instantly, and the more sincerely since she knew that Winifred had long been angling vainly and desperately for the Senator. There was a bitterer sarcasm in her retort than she meant, but Winifred knew what Alice was thinking, and canceled it by meeting it frankly:

"I wish I could have him. G.o.d knows I'd prefer him to any of these half-baked whippersnappers that--"

"Winifred!" Persis murmured, subduingly; and Miss Mather subsided like a retreating thunder-storm. "The Senator is one of the--"

"I know he is, my dear," Alice broke in, in her most soothing tone.

"He's far, _far_ too splendid a man for a fool like me. But can't I admit how splendid he would be in the Senate Chamber without wanting him in my boudoir?"

"Alice!" gasped Persis. "Remember that there are young men present."