As he rather suspected, Mr. King was destined to encounter a brief
impediment in the person of Stella’s father. Who was Mr. King? What
did any one really know about him, and why so much mystery about the
future? But the answer was always simply: “Why, Utterbourne—your old
friend Captain Utterbourne.” Mr. Meade’s position was certainly not a
simple one, especially since he seemed to be the only one attempting,
even hesitatingly, to stand in the way of true love. And, though he tried
to see the situation all clearly and advise what seemed best, the worst
of it was he felt Mr. King’s peculiar fascination, too, in a sense, and
so seemed unable to make up his mind as to the values of an unusual
situation.
“Stella,” he said, in his grave way, “are _you_ sure—that’s the
point—_dead_ sure, girlie?”
And Stella was thinking excitedly: “If father really makes a fuss, we’ll
elope!” It was just the tang of fire which completed the romance of this
whole unbelievable circumstance.
Captain Utterbourne, as a matter of fact, was inclined, in his faintly
quizzical and even petulant way, to dissuasion, when he learned the
length to which affairs had run. He tried delicately to ease his mind.
Meade was so simple.
“King’s all right, of course—h’m? Though perhaps romantic....” It was
as near as he could come to uttering platitudes like Iago. “The trouble
with King is, he’s too irresistible. How he’s managed to escape all these
years is beyond my comprehension! I must say,” the Captain complained,
“it’s something of a calamity he should have chosen this particular
time—h’m? But the man, it seems, refuses to listen to reason, just as the
woman refuses. However,” he added, in a thin, hand-washing tone, “from
your point of view I can see how it may appear something of a catch—h’m?”
And he left, humming _To a Wild Rose_.
But at length the creases were quite ironed out. Mr. Meade called King
into the back parlour and told him it was all right—though his voice
broke just a little as he added: “I only want my girl to be happy.”
They were definitely to be married, and Stella naturally didn’t have time
for anything any more. Even sleep was an indulgence almost crowded out.
How life tore along!
One day she unexpectedly met Jerome downtown. The contrast between them
was really startling. It seemed unbelievable a man so hopelessly obscure
and a girl so conspicuously important could have been engaged to each
other only a few short weeks ago. What a pace she had gone! But Jerome,
with the clip on his tie and his jaunty little pipe between his lips,
looked more than ever irrevocably fixed in a certain niche. He tried
still to flatter his ego into believing that, despite appearances, Stella
would be the heavier loser; but such flattery was obviously growing
harder every day.
When they met, Stella was bound for a tea engagement with Elsa. Indeed,
just as they were speaking, Elsa herself came along.
“Ah?” she said, with cool uplifting voice and cool down-drooping eyes.
“Oh, am I late, Elsa?”
“No. But even if you were, a bride-to-be is always forgiven anything.”
She gave Jerome a glancing look.
“I’d like you to meet my friend Miss Utterbourne,” said Stella, turning
to Jerome, and feeling that the situation might possibly develop
embarrassments.
The two nodded formally, Elsa’s eyes merely drooping a little more. Then
Jerome felt so profoundly unhappy that he just mumbled something, raised
his hat, and left them. But as he walked he unconsciously straightened
his shoulders a little, and held his head surprisingly high.
“Isn’t that the young man you threw over, Stella?”
“Yes, we were engaged for awhile,” Stella replied with a tone of
attempted lightness.
Elsa gazed after him. “Something tells me you’ll never see _him_ again.”
Her friend appeared rather startled. “What do you mean, Elsa?”
“I don’t know,” the other shrugged. “The way his back looked, I guess.
Things come to me like that, and I always speak them out.”
“Do you mean he might do something—something desperate?” faltered Stella.
Then Elsa laughed. “No, little one, you miss my meaning. What I meant was
he’d never give you another chance.” She chuckled cryptically.
* * * * *
“I suppose, in a way, it does look like rushing into matrimony,”
observed Stella happily, sipping her tea and trying to be convincingly
sophisticated.
Elsa stared in her blank way. “Everybody admits he’s wonderful,” she
etched. “Still, to be perfectly frank, it does seem somewhat pell-mell,
even assuming the man to be wealthy and—well, a kind of prince.” Her
eyes were whimsical. But since Mr. King had to dash away to parts
unknown in the _Star of Troy_, without giving any one a chance to catch
one’s breath, was there anything to be done about it, after all? “Parts
unknown,” mused Elsa. Yes, rather a complete mystery, all round.
“I can’t tell you any more about it, Elsa, because I don’t know any more.
Hasn’t your father even mentioned it?”
Elsa smiled with not a little of the parental cynicism, though it
flickered more warmly upon her kindlier mouth and in her cow-brown eyes.
“I haven’t a bit of pull, dear child. The Captain, though he’s a sort of
an old dear, is just about as communicative as a clam, even with me.”
“Whenever I say anything about it all,” admitted Stella, but with shining
eyes, “Ferdinand tells me to remember what happened in the case of
Lohengrin. What did happen, do you remember?” she smiled.
Still, though she had coaxed very prettily at times, especially toward
the last, she had also come, perhaps even a bit consciously, as the
closer intimacy developed, to live up to that doll-like ideal King seemed
rather to nurse in his high-sailing heart. “Leave everything to me,
little lady,” he had urged, in his magnetic, irresistible fashion. “Never
you worry that dear little head of yours about business. It doesn’t
belong in a woman’s sphere. Does it, peaches? You just leave things to
me, and if we’re successful in this deal, I’ll take you to Paris and buy
you all the hats in the rue de la Paix!”
Elsa warned her young friend against “letting any man make a ninny” of
her. “You seem to be quite hypnotized, Stella. It’s all very well,” she
observed, her eyes drooping so much that it looked as though she were
pulling the corners down with her fingers, “to let a man think he can
run his business without you to begin with. They always lead off like
that. But unless you mean to be a traitor to your sex, you can’t begin
too soon letting it be known (I don’t care if he _is_ a prince!) that the
old lord-and-master idea has been converted into a sieve.” She paused,
then smilingly dropped in an extra lump. “It’s because I refuse to be a
traitor that I’m no longer wearing my engagement ring.”
“What!” cried Stella in real dismay.
Elsa held up the vacant finger with a philosophic grimace.
“But—”
“I’d rather not go into it now, if you don’t mind,” she half yawned.
“It’s rather a boring business, and I’m trying to forget I was ever such
a fool as to be taken in.”
“Oh, but Elsa—after starting off so splendidly—the dance....”
“Well, isn’t it better to wake up now than too late? Besides, it’s merely
an episode. Love is only an episode, little one. Don’t you hang on so
hard to your dangerous ideals!”
And she reached across and pinched Stella’s cheek in her vaguely rough
way.