Enid Barr left with her daughter for Kansas City that night, after
wiring her husband, Courtney Barr, who was still awaiting word from her
in Capital City. For two days Sally and Enid shopped for a suitable
wardrobe for Sally, went to shows together, explored the city, and spent
many hours talking. Whenever the question of Sally's future arose, Enid
spoke only in generalities, evading all direct questions, but about
Sally's childhood and young girlhood in the orphanage and on the Carson
farm, and about her experiences with the carnival, Enid was insatiably
curious and invariably sympathetic. Sally sensed that her mother was
anxiously awaiting Courtney Barr's arrival before making any definite
plans, and gradually the girl grew to dread the ordeal of meeting her
mother's husband, the man who would become her father by adoption.
And when at last he came she knew that her troubled intuition had been
correct. However "wonderful" he had been to Enid when she had discovered
that her child had not been born dead but was alive somewhere in the
world, Sally felt instantly that his kindness and generosity toward Enid
would not extend to herself.
Courtney Barr was a meticulously groomed, meticulously courteous man who
had, in slipping into middle-age, lost all traces of the boy and youth
he must have been. To Sally's terrified eyes, this rather heavy,
ponderous man, on whom dignity rested like a royal cloak, looked as if
he had been born old and wise and cold. She wondered how her exquisite,
arrogant little mother could love him so devotedly.
Almost immediately after the awkward introduction--"This is our Sally,
Court!"--the three of them had had dinner together, a silent meal, so
far as Sally was concerned. She had felt that the Enid with whom she had
talked and laughed and wept these two days had slipped away, leaving
this sophisticated, strange woman in her place, a woman who was in
nowise related to her, a woman who was merely Mrs. Courtney Barr.
They left her alone for an hour after dinner, an hour which she spent in
her own room in writing a long, frightened, appealing letter to David.
At nine o'clock Enid knocked on her door and invited her to join them in
the parlor of the luxurious suite which had been such a delight to
orphanage-bred Sally.
She found Courtney Barr seated in a large arm chair, her mother perched
on the arm of it, one tiny foot in a silver slipper swinging with
nervous rapidity. The man smiled bleakly, a smile that did not reach his
cold gray eyes, as Sally took the nearby chair that he indicated.
"Mrs. Barr and I have been discussing your immediate future, Sally," he
began ponderously, in tones that he evidently thought were kind.
Institutional timidity closed down upon Sally; under those cold eyes she
lost that ephemeral beauty of hers which depended so largely upon her
emotions. It was her institutional voice--meekness hiding fear and
rebellion--which answered: "Yes, sir."
"Oh, let me talk to her, Court!" Enid begged. "You're scaring my baby to
death. He fancies himself as an old ogre, Sally darling, but he's really
a dear inside. You see, Sally, I was so eager to find my baby that I
made no plans at all."
Courtney Barr said, "I think I'd better do the talking after all, my
dear. Your sentimentality--natural, of course, under the
circumstances--would make it impossible for you to state the case
clearly and convincingly."
Sally's cold hands clasped each other tightly in her lap as she stared
with wide, frightened eyes at the man who was about to arrange her whole
future for her.
"I have made Mrs. Barr understand how impossible it will be for us to
take you into our home at once, as our adopted daughter," Courtney Barr
went on in his heavy, judicial voice.
Sally sprang to her feet, her eyes blazing in her white face. "I didn't
ask to be found, to be adopted!" she cried. "If you don't want me, say
so, and let me go back to David!"
It was the loving distress on Enid Barr's quivering face that quickly
brought Sally to bewildered, humiliated submission, rather than the cold
anger and ill-concealed hatred in Courtney Barr's pale gray eyes. Enid
had left the arm of her husband's chair and had drawn Sally to a little
rose-up-holstered settee, and it was with her mother's hand cuddling
hers compassionately that Sally listened as the man's heavy, judicial
voice went on and on:
"I am sure, Sally, that when you have had time for reflection you will
see my viewpoint. Naturally, your mother's happiness means more to me
than does yours, and I believe I know my wife well enough to state
positively that a newspaper scandal or even gossip among our own circle
would cause her the most acute distress. It shall be our task, Sally, to
see that she is spared such distress.
"I'm sorry to appear brutal," Barr said stiffly. "But it is better for
us to face the facts, for if our friends ever know them they will not
mince words. If you should come into our home now, as you are, gossips
would immediately set themselves to dig up the facts. Too many people
already know that Sally Ford has been sought by the police as
a--delinquent. My wife and I could not possibly hope to explain our
extraordinary interest in a runaway orphan. Do you agree with me,
Sally?" He tried to make his voice kind, but his eyes were as cold and
hard as steel.
"Yes, sir," Sally agreed in her meek, institutional voice. But she felt
so sick with shame and anger that her only desire then was to run and
run and run until she found a haven in David's arms. At the thought,
some of the spiritedness which her few weeks of independence had
fostered in her asserted itself. "But, Mr. Barr, if I would disgrace my
mother, why don't you let me go? I can marry David and no one will ever
know that I have a mother--"
"That is very sensible, Sally," Courtney Barr nodded, a gleam of
kindliness in his cold eyes, "and I have tried to make your mother
believe that your happiness would be best assured by your sticking to
your own class--"
"It isn't her class, if you mean that she's suited only to poverty and
hard work!" Enid Barr interrupted passionately. "Look at her, Court!
She's a born lady! She's fine and delicate clear through--"
"And so is David!" Sally cried indignantly. "He may be middle-class, but
he's the finest, most honorable man in the world!"
"We shall not quarrel about class," Courtney Barr cut in with heavy
dignity. "The important thing is that your mother is determined to have
you, to fit you for the station to which she belongs. I believe she is
making a mistake, both from your standpoint and from hers, but I am
willing to agree to a sensible arrangement. Our plan now, Sally, is to
put you into a conservative, rather obscure girls' finishing school in
the South. I have several relatives--'poor relations,' I suppose you
would call them--in the South, and it is my suggestion that you enter
school as my ward--mine, you understand, not your mother's, so that any
suspicion as to your real parentage will rest upon me, rather than upon
her." He arched his eyebrows at Sally, looking rather consciously noble,
and she nodded miserably. "During the two years that you will be in
school--"
"Two years!" Sally echoed blankly. Two years more of loneliness, of not
belonging, of being an orphan!
"Two years will pass very quickly," Courtney Barr assured her. "Enid,
please control yourself! I am infinitely sorry to distress you in this
manner, but it is the only sensible thing to do."
"Yes, Court," Enid choked and buried her exquisite face in her small,
useless-looking white hands.
Sally put her arms about her mother, and leaned her glossy black head
against the golden one. "I'll try to be contented and happy, Mr. Barr.
Of course I want to protect Mother--"
"That is another thing, Sally," Courtney Barr interrupted in an almost
gentle voice. "You must try to remember not to refer to Mrs. Barr as
your mother in the hearing of anyone--anyone! If we are going to protect
her, we must begin now."
"Yes, sir," Sally bowed her head lower so he might not see her tears.
"Both Mrs. Barr and I will drop casual remarks about my pretty young
ward in school down South, until our friends have become accustomed to
the idea. You will be registered as Sally Barr, a distant relative of my
own, and my ward. It is even probable that it would not be unwise to
have you with us for a short time next summer. We have an estate on Long
Island, you know.
"As my ward and as my distant relative, you would not be particularly
conspicuous, but our friends would meet you casually and be the less
surprised when it became known that Mrs. Barr and I had decided to adopt
you as our daughter. All our friends and acquaintances know that it has
been a great grief to us that we have no children, and I believe our
action in this matter would occasion no great surprise. The adoption
itself will take place before your eighteenth birthday, while you are
still in school. If there is any newspaper publicity, it will be of an
innocuous kind, I hope.
"Naturally I shall take care that any newspaper investigation will not
be able to go back of the story I shall prepare very carefully, and if
there is any hint of scandal at all, it will inevitably reflect on me
and not on your mother, as I have already pointed out. After your
adoption and your graduation from the finishing school, you will, of
course, take your place in our home as our daughter, will make your
debut in society that fall, and, I hope, be very happy with us and in
your new life."
Sally sat very still, her eyes wide and blank, while her bewildered,
unhappy mind tried to picture the future which Courtney Barr was
outlining for her. At last she shook her head, as if to clear away the
mists of doubt and bewilderment. Her mother had taken Sally's little
lax, cold hands and was cuddling them against her cheeks, bringing a
fingertip to her lips occasionally.
"Poor baby! And--poor mother!" Enid whispered brokenly, and the spell
was broken. The hard lump of unhappiness and resentment that had been
aching in Sally's throat since Courtney Barr had begun to speak melted
in tears. They wept in each other's arms, while Enid's husband walked
impatiently up and down the room.
When the storm had spent itself, Sally remembered David again, and pain
and fear contracted her heart sharply.
"Did you see David, Mr. Barr?" She sat up and dabbed at her wet cheeks
with one of the exquisite sheer linen handkerchiefs which Enid had given
her.
"Oh, yes, yes!" Barr answered quickly. "I managed his affairs very
neatly. Rand, the district attorney, personally attended to the quashing
of the charges against him, and it cost only a thousand dollars to get
Carson to issue a statement to the press that he had really seen nothing
compromising between young Nash and yourself. He also admitted that the
boy's anger had been in a measure justified, that the assault had been
provoked by his own mistaken charges against you and Nash. The boy's
reputation is cleared now and he can go back to college this fall. I
also saw his grandfather and persuaded him that the boy had been a hero
rather than a blackguard. Young Nash is at home on his grandfather's
farm again, so that incident is successfully closed."
Gratitude brought Sally to her feet. "Thank you, Mr. Barr! You've been
wonderful! It won't be so hard for me to be away at school if I know
that David is in school, too. I wrote him tonight, but I'll tear it up
and write a new letter, telling him all about everything and how happy I
am that he's free of those awful charges--"
"No, Sally," Barr interrupted, frowning. "Your mother and I are agreed
that you must not write to young Nash, that there must be no thought of
an engagement--"
"Not write to David?" Sally, echoed blankly. "I love David, Mr. Barr,
and I always will. It's not fair to ask me to promise not to write to
him."
"I already have his promise not to write to you," Barr told her
implacably. "He understands the situation, agrees with your mother and
me that your past must be forgotten as quickly as possible. You are
entering upon a new life tomorrow when you leave for Virginia with me, a
life that will be totally different from David Nash's. You will--though
you don't seem to realize it--be an heiress to great wealth some day--"
"You told him that!" Sally accused him hotly. "You told him he'd be a
fortune-hunter if he tried to marry me when I'm of age! Oh, you're not
fair! You have no right to turn David against me, when I love him as I
do--"
"You're only sixteen, Sally!" Barr cut in sternly, "You don't know the
meaning of the word love--"
"Please, Court," Enid begged, her own face white and drawn with pity for
Sally. "Please let me handle this myself. Sally is overwrought now,
nervously exhausted. Come along to bed now, darling," she coaxed, her
little hands upon Sally's shoulders. "Let Mother tuck you up and sing
you a lullaby. I'm not going to be cheated of that experience even if my
baby is bigger than I am."
Fresh tears gushed into Sally's eyes, and she allowed herself to be led
away. At the door she paused:
"Good night, Mr. Barr. I--I don't want you to think I don't appreciate
what you've done for me--and David--and what you're going to do for me.
I do think you're good and that you want to be kind to me, but I know
you're making a mistake about David and me. I am young, but I know I
love David and that I'll never want to marry anyone else."
Courtney Barr flushed and looked embarrassed. "Thank you, Sally. I'm
sure we'll be friends. I want to be. I expect to take my duty as your
father very seriously, to try to make you happy. As for David, time has
a way of settling things if we only give it a chance. By the way, my
dear," he added hastily as Sally was about to pass on into her bedroom
with her mother, "I think it will be wiser if your mother does not
accompany us to Virginia. I will arrange for you to board with my
relatives in Virginia until school opens this fall. They will be glad,
for a consideration, to do and say anything I wish them to in regard to
you, and we must begin immediately to take every precaution to protect
your mother."
"Yes, sir," Sally answered faintly, her eyes appealing to Enid for
consolation.
When Sally was in bed, having been flutteringly and lovingly assisted in
her preparation by her mother, Enid bent over her to whisper:
"Darling, darling, don't look so forlorn! Two years will pass so swiftly
and if you're very good, we'll let you ask David to your coming-out
party."