Duncan Coppered felt that his father's second marriage was a great
mistake. He never said so; that would not have been Duncan's way. But
he had a little manner of discreetly compressing his lips, when, the
second Mrs. Coppered was mentioned, eying his irreproachable boots, and
raising his handsome brows, that was felt to be significant. People who
knew and admired Duncan--and to know him was to admire him--realized
that he would never give more definite indications of filial
disapproval than these. His exquisite sense of what was due his
father's wife from him would not permit it. But all the more did the
silent sympathy of his friends go out to him.
To Harriet Culver he said the one thing that these friends, comparing
notes, considered indicative of his real feeling. Harriet, who met him
on the Common one cold afternoon, reproached him, during the course of
a slow ride, for his non-appearance at various dinners and teas.
"Well, I've been rather bowled over, don't you know? I've been getting
my bearings," said Duncan, simply.
"Of course you have!" said Harriet, with an expectant thrill.
"I'd gotten to count on monopolizing the governor," pursued Duncan,
presently, with a rueful smile. "I shall feel no end in the way for a
while, I'm afraid, Of course, I didn't think Dad would always keep"-his
serious eyes met Harriet's--"always keep my mother's place empty; but
this came rather suddenly, just the same."
"Had your father written you?" said Harriet, confused between fear of
saying the wrong thing and dread of a long silence.
"Oh, yes!" Duncan attempted an indifferent tone. "He had written me in
August about meeting Miss Charteris and her little brother in Rome, you
know, and how much he liked her. Her brother was an invalid, and died
shortly after; and then Dad met her again in Paris, quite alone, and
they were married immediately."
He fell silent. Presently Harriet said daringly: "She's--clever; she's
gifted, isn't she?"
"I think you were very bold to say that, dear!" said Mrs. Van Winkle,
when Harriet repeated this conversation, some hours later, in the
family circle.
"Oh, Aunt Minnie, I had to--to see what he'd say."
"And what did he say?" asked Harriet's mother,
"He looked at me gravely, you know, until I was ashamed of myself," the
girl confessed, "and then he said: 'Why, Hat, you must know that Mrs.
Coppered was a professional actress?'"
"And a very obscure little actress, at that," finished Mrs. Culver,
nodding.
"Pacific Coast stock companies or something like that," said Harriet.
"Well, and then, after a minute, he said, so sadly, 'That's what hurts,
although I hate myself for letting it make a difference.'"
"Duncan said that?" Mrs. Van Winkle was incredulous.
"Poor boy! With one aunt Mrs. Vincent-Hunter and the other an English
duchess! The Coppereds have always been among Boston's best families.
It's terrible," said Mrs. Culver.
"Well, I think it is," the girl agreed warmly. "Judge Clyde Potter's
grandson, and brought up with the very nicest people, and sensitive as
he is--I think it's just too bad it should be Duncan!"
"There's no doubt she was an actress, I suppose, Emily?"
"Well," said Harriet's mother, "it's not denied." She shrugged
eloquently.
"Shall you call, mother?"
"Oh, I shall have to once, I suppose. The Coppereds, you know. Every
one will call on her for Carey's sake," said Mrs. Culver, sighing.
Every one duly called on Mrs. Carey Coppered, when she returned to
Boston; and although she made her mourning an excuse for declining all
formal engagements, she sent out cards for an "at home" on a Friday in
January. She was a thin, graceful woman, with the blue-black Irish eyes
that are set in with a sooty finger, and an unexpectedly rich, deep
voice. Her quiet, almost diffident manner was obviously accentuated
just now by her recent sorrow; but this did not conceal from her
husband's friends the fact that the second Mrs. Coppered was not of
their world. Everything charming she might be, but to the manner born
she was not. They would not meet her on her own ground, she could not
meet them on theirs. In her own home she listened like a puzzled,
silenced child to the gay chatter that went on about her.
Duncan stood with his father, at his stepmother's side, on her
afternoon at home, prompting her when names or faces confused her,
treating her with a little air of gracious intimacy eminently becoming
and charming under the circumstances. His tact stood between her and
more than one blunder, and it was to be noticed that she relied upon
him even more than upon his father. Carey Coppered, indeed, hitherto
staid and serious, was quite transformed by his joy and pride in her,
and would not have seen a thousand blunders on her part. The consensus
of opinion, among his friends, was that Carey was "really a little
absurd, don't you know?" and that Mrs. Carey was "quite deliciously
odd," and that Duncan was "too wonderful--poor, dear boy!"
Mrs. Coppered would have agreed that her stepson was wonderful, but
with quite a literal meaning. She found him a real cause for
wonder--this poised, handsome, crippled boy of nineteen, with his
tailor, and his tutor, and his groom, and the heavy social
responsibilities that bored him so heartily. With the honesty of a
naturally brilliant mind cultivated by hard experience, and much
solitary reading, she was quite ready to admit that her marriage had
placed her in a new and confusing environment; she wanted only to adapt
herself, to learn the strange laws by which it was controlled. And she
would naturally have turned quite simply to Duncan for help.
But Duncan very gently, very coldly, repelled her. He was
representative of his generation. Things were not LEARNED by the best
people; they were instinctively KNOWN. The girls that Duncan knew--the
very children in their nurseries--never hesitated over the wording of a
note of thanks, never innocently omitted the tipping of a servant,
never asked their maid's advice as to suitable frocks and gloves for
certain occasions. All these things, and a thousand more, his
stepmother did, to his cold embarrassment and annoyance.
The result was unfortunate in two ways. Mrs. Coppered shrank under the
unexpressed disapproval into more than her native timidity, rightly
thinking his attitude represented that of all her new world; and Carey,
who worshipped his young wife, perceived at last that Duncan was not
championing his stepmother, and for the first time in his life showed a
genuine displeasure with his son.
This was exquisitely painful to Margaret Coppered. She knew what father
and son had been to each other before her coming; she knew, far better
than Carey, that the boy's adoration of his father was the one vital
passion of his life. Mrs. Ayers, the housekeeper, sometimes made her
heartsick with innocent revelations.
"From the day his mother died, Mrs. Coppered, my dear, when poor little
Master Duncan wasn't but three weeks old, I don't believe he and his
father were separated an hour when they could be together! Mr. Coppered
would take that little owl-faced baby downstairs with him when he came
in before dinner, and 'way into the night they'd be in the library
together, the baby laughing and crowing, or asleep on a pillow on the
sofa. Why, the boy wasn't four when he let the nurse go, and carried
the child off for a month's fishing in Canada! And when we first knew
that the hip was bad, Mr. Coppered gave up his business and for five
years in Europe he never let Master Duncan out of his sight. The games
and the books--I should say the child had a million lead soldiers! The
first thing in the morning it'd be, 'Is Dad awake, Paul?' and he
running into the room; and at noon, coming back from his ride, 'Is Dad
home?' Wonderful to him his father's always been."
"That's why I'm afraid he'll never like me," Margaret was quite simple
enough to say wistfully, in response. "He never laughs out or chatters,
as Mr. Coppered says he used to do."
And after such a conversation she would be especially considerate of
Duncan--find some excuse for going upstairs when she heard the click of
his crutch in the hall, so that he might find his father alone in the
library, or excuse herself from a theatre trip so that they might be
together.
"Oh, I'm so glad the Poindexters want us!" she said one night, over her
letters.
"Why?" said Carey, amused by her ardor. "We can't go."
"I know it. But they're such nice people, Carey. Duncan will be so
pleased to have them want me!"
Her husband laughed out suddenly, but a frown followed the laugh.
"You're very patient with the boy, Margaret. I--well, I've not been
very patient lately, I'm afraid. He manages to exasperate me so, with
these grandiose airs, that he doesn't seem the same boy at all!"
Mrs. Coppered came over to take the arm of his chair and put her white
fingers on the little furrow between his eyes.
"It breaks my heart when you hurt him, Carey! He broods over it so.
And, after all, he's only doing what they all--all the people he knows
would do!"
"I thought better things of him," said his father.
"If you go to Yucatan in February, Carey," Margaret said, "he and I'll
be here alone, and then we'll get on much smoother, you'll see."
"I don't know," he said. "I hate to go this year; I hate to leave you."
But he went, nevertheless, for the annual visit to his rubber
plantation; and Margaret and Duncan were left alone in the big house
for six weeks. Duncan took especial pains to be considerate of his
stepmother in his father's absence, and showed her that he felt her
comfort to be his first care. He came and went like a polite,
unresponsive shadow, spending silent evenings with her in the library,
or acting as an irreproachable and unapproachable escort when escort
was needed. Margaret, watching him, began to despair of ever gaining
his friendship.
Late one wintry afternoon the boy came in from a concert, and was
passing the open door of his step-mother's room when she called him. He
found her standing by one of the big windows, a very girlish figure in
her trim walking-suit and long furs. The face she turned to him, under
her wide hat, was rosy from contact with the nipping spring air.
"Duncan," she said, "I've had such a nice invitation from Mrs. Gregory."
Duncan's face brightened.
"Mrs. Jim?" said he.
"No, indeed!" exulted Margaret, gayly. "Mrs. Clement."
"Oh, I say!" said Duncan, smiling too. For if young Mrs. Jim Gregory's
friendship was good, old Mrs. Clement's was much better. For the first
time, he sat down informally in Margaret's room and laid aside his
crutch.
"She's going to take General and Mrs. Wetherbee up to Snowhill for
three or four days," pursued Margaret, "and the Jim Gregorys and Mr.
Fred Gregory and me. Won't your father be pleased? Now, Duncan, what
clothes do I need?"
"Oh, the best you've got," said Duncan, instantly interested; and,
until it was time to dress for dinner, the two were deep in absorbed
consultation.
Duncan was whistling as he went upstairs to dress, and his stepmother
was apparently in high spirits. But twenty minutes later, when he found
her in the library, there was a complete change. Her eyes were worried,
her whole manner distressed, and her voice sharp. She looked up from a
telegram as he came in.
"I've just had a wire from an old friend in New York," said she, "and I
want you to telephone the answer for me, will you, Duncan? I've not a
moment to spare. I shall have to leave for New York at the earliest
possible minute. After you've telephoned the wire, will you find out
about the trains from South Station? And get my ticket and reservation,
will you? Or send Paul for them--whatever's quickest."
Duncan hardly recognized her. Her hesitation was gone, her diffidence
gone. She did not even look at him as she spoke; his scowl passed
entirely unnoticed. He stood coldly disapproving.
"I don't really see how you can go," he began. "Mrs. Gregory--"
"Yes, I know!" she agreed hastily. "I telephoned. She hadn't come in
yet, so I had to make it a message--simply that Mrs. Coppered couldn't
manage it tomorrow. She'll be very angry, of course. Duncan, would it
save any time to have Paul take this right to the telegraph station--"
"Surely," Duncan interrupted in turn, "you're not going to rush off--"
"Oh, surely--surely--surely--I am!" she answered, fretted by his tone.
"Don't tease me, dear boy! I've quite enough to worry over! I--I"--she
pushed her hair childishly off her face--"I wish devoutly that your
father was here. He always knows in a second what's to be done!
But--but fly with this telegram, won't you?" she broke off suddenly.
Duncan went. The performance of his errand was not reassuring. The
telegram was directed to Philip Penrose, at the Colonial Theatre, and
read:
Will be with you this evening. Depend on me. Heartsick at news.
MARGARET.
When he went upstairs again, he rapped at his stepmother's door.
Hatted, and with a fur coat over her arm, she opened it.
"Are you taking Fanny?" said Duncan, icily. Fanny, the maid,
middle-aged, loyal, could be trusted with the honor of the Coppereds.
"Heavens, no!" said Mrs. Coppered, vigorously.
"Then I hope you will not object to my escort," said the boy, flushing.
If he meant it for reproach, it missed its mark. Mrs. Coppered's
surprised look became doubtful, finally changed to relief.
"Why, that's very sweet of you, Duncan," she said graciously,
"especially as I can't tell you what I'm going for, my dear, for it may
not occur. But I think, of all people in the world, you're the one to
go with me!"
Duncan eyed her severely.
"At the same time," he said, "I can't for one moment pretend--"
"Exactly; so that it's all the nicer of you to volunteer to come
along!" she said briskly. "You'll have to hurry, Duncan. And ask Paul
to come up for my trunk, will you? We leave the house in half an hour!"
Mrs. Coppered advised her stepson to supply himself with magazines on
the train.
"For I shall have to read," she said, "and perhaps you won't be able to
sleep."
And read she did, with hardly a look or a word for him. She turned and
re-turned the pages of a little paper-covered book, moving her lips and
knitting her brows over it as she read.
Duncan, miserably apprehensive that they would meet some acquaintance
and have to give an explanation of their mad journey, satisfied himself
that there was no such immediate danger, and, assuming a forbidding
expression, sat erect in his seat. But he finally fell into an uneasy
sleep, not rousing himself until the train drew into the Forty-second
Street station late in the evening. His stepmother had made a rough
pillow of his overcoat and put it between his shoulder and the
window-frame; but he did not comment upon it as he slipped it on and
followed her through the roaring, chilly station to a taxicab.
"The Colonial Theatre, as fast as you can!" said she, as they jumped
in. She was obviously nervous, biting her lips and humming under her
breath as she watched the brilliantly lighted streets they threaded so
slowly. Almost before it stopped she was out of the cab, at the
entrance of a Broadway theatre. Duncan, alert and suspicious, read the
name "Colonial" in flaming letters, and learned from a larger sign that
Miss Eleanor Forsythe and an all-star cast were appearing therein in a
revival of Reade's "Masks and Faces."
In the foyer Mrs. Coppered asked authoritatively for the manager. It
was after ten o'clock, the curtain had risen on the last act, and a
general opinion prevailed that Mr. Wyatt had gone home. But Mrs.
Coppered's distinguished air, her magnificent furs, her beauty, all had
their effect, and presently Duncan followed her into the hot, untidy
little office where the manager was to be found.
He was a pleasant, weary-looking man, who wheeled about from his desk
as they came in, and signed the page to place chairs.
"Mr. Wyatt," said Mrs. Coppered, with her pleasantest smile, "can you
give us five minutes?"
"I can give you as many as you like, madam," said the manager,
patiently, but with a most unpromising air.
"Only five!" she reassured him, as they sat down. Then, with an
absolutely businesslike air, she continued: "Mr. Wyatt, you have Mr.
and Mrs. Penrose in your company, I think, both very old friends of
mine. She's playing Mabel Vane,--Mary Archer is the name she uses,--and
he's Triplet. Isn't that so?"
The manager nodded, eying her curiously.
"Mr. Wyatt, you've heard of their trouble, of course? The accident this
morning to their little boy?"
"Ah, yes--yes," said Wyatt. "Of course. Hurt by a fall, poor little
fellow. Very serious. Yes, poor things! Did you want to see--"
"You know that one of your big surgeons here--I've forgotten the
name!--is to operate on little Phil tomorrow?" asked Mrs. Coppered.
"So Penrose said," assented the manager, slowly, watching her as if a
little surprised at her insistence.
"Mr. Wyatt." said Mrs. Coppered,--and Duncan noticed that she had
turned a little pale,--"Mrs. Penrose wired me news of all this only a
few hours ago. She is half frantic at the idea that she must go on
tomorrow afternoon and evening; yet the understudy is ill, and she felt
it was too short notice to ask you to make a change now. But it
occurred to me to come to see you about it. I want to ask you a favor.
I want you to let me play Mrs. Penrose's part tomorrow afternoon and
tomorrow night. I've played Mabel Vane a hundred times; it's a part I
know very well," she went on quickly. "I--I am not in the least afraid
that I can't take it. And then she can be with the little boy through
the operation and afterward--he's only five, you know, at the
unreasonable age when all children want their mothers! Can't that be
arranged, Mr. Wyatt?"
Duncan, holding a horrified breath, fixed his eyes, as he did, on the
manager's face. He was relieved at the inflexible smile he saw there.
"My dear lady," said Wyatt, kindly, "that is--absolutely--OUT of the
question! Anything in reason I will be delighted to do for Penrose and
Miss Archer--but you must surely realize that I can't do that!"
"But wait!" said Mrs. Coppered, eagerly, not at all discouraged. "Don't
say no yet! I AM an actress, Mr. Wyatt, or was one. I know the part
thoroughly. And the circumstances--the circumstances are unusual,
aren't they?"
While she was speaking the manager was steadily shaking his head.
"I have no doubt you could play the part," said he, "but I can't upset
my whole company by substituting now. Tomorrow is going to be a big
night. The house is completely sold out to the Masons--their convention
week, you know. As it happens, there couldn't be a more inconvenient
time. No, I can't consider it!"
Mrs. Coppered smiled at him. She had a very winning smile.
"It would mean a rehearsal; I suppose THAT would be inconvenient, to
begin with," she said.
"Exactly," said Wyatt. "Friday night. I can't ask my people to rehearse
to-morrow."
"But suppose you put it to them and they were all willing?" pursued the
lady.
"My dear lady, I tell you it's absolutely--" He made a goaded gesture.
Then, making fierce little dashes and dots on his blotter with his
pencil, and eying each one ferociously as he made it, he added
irritably, but in a quieter tone: "You're an actress, eh? Where'd you
get your experience?"
"With various stock companies on the Pacific Coast," she answered
readily. "My name was Margaret Charteris. I don't suppose you ever
heard it?"
"As it happens, I HAVE," he returned, surprised into interest. "You
knew Joe Pitcher, of course. He spoke of you. I remember the name very
well."
"Professor Pitcher!" she exclaimed radiantly. "Of course I knew
him--dear old man! Where is he--still there?"
"Still there," he assented absently. "You married, I think?"
"I am Mrs. Coppered now--Mrs. Carey Coppered," she said. The man gave
her a suddenly awakened glance.
"Surely," he said thoughtfully. They looked steadily at each other, and
Duncan saw the color come into Margaret's face. There was a little
silence.
Then the manager flung down his pencil, wheeled about in his chair, and
rubbed his hands briskly together.
"Well!" he said. "And you think you can take Miss Archer's place, Mrs.
Coppered?"
"If you will let me."
"Why," he said,--and Duncan would not have believed that the somewhat
heavy face could wear a look so pleasant,--"you are doing so much, Mrs.
Coppered, in stepping into the gap this way, that I'll do my share if I
can! Perhaps I can't arrange it, but we can try. I'll call a rehearsal
and speak to Miss Forsythe to-night. If you know the part, it's just
possible that by going over it now we can get out of a rehearsal
tomorrow. She wants to be with the little boy, eh?" he added musingly.
"Yes, I suppose it might make a big difference, his not being terrified
by strangers." And then, turning toward Margaret, he said warmly and a
little awkwardly: "This is a remarkably kind thing for you to do, Mrs.
Coppered."
"Oh, I would do more than that for Mary Penrose," said she, with a
little difficulty. "She knows it. She wired me as a mad last hope
today, and we came as fast as we could, Mr. Coppered and I." And she
introduced Duncan very simply: "My stepson, Mr. Wyatt."
Duncan, fuming, could be silent no longer.
"I hope my--Mrs. Coppered is not serious in offering to do this," said
he, very white, and in a slightly shaking voice. "I assure you that my
father--that every one!--would think it a most extraordinary thing to
do!"
Mrs. Coppered laid her hand lightly on his arm.
"Yes, I know, Duncan!" said she, quickly, soothingly. "I know how you
feel! But--"
Duncan slightly repudiated the touch.
"I can't think how you can consider it!" he said passionately, but in a
low voice. "A thing like this always gets out! You know--you know how
your having been on the stage is regarded by our friends! It is simply
insane--"
He had said a little more than he meant, in his high feeling, and
Margaret's face had grown white.
"I asked you only for your escort, Duncan," she said gently, but with
blazing eyes. There was open hostility in the look they exchanged.
"I can't see what good my escort does," said the boy, childishly, "when
you won't listen to what you know is true!"
"Nevertheless, I still want it," she answered evenly. And after a
moment Duncan, true to his training, and already a little ashamed of
his ineffectual outburst,--for to waste a display of emotion was, in
his code, a lamentable breach of etiquette,--shrugged his shoulders.
"Still want to stay with it?" said Mr. Wyatt, giving her a shrewd,
friendly look.
"Certainly," she said promptly; but she was breathing fast.
"Then we might go and talk things over," he said; and a moment later
they were crossing the theatre to the stage door. The final curtain had
fallen only a moment before, but the lights were up, the orchestra
halfway through a swift waltz, and the audience, buttoning coats and
struggling with gloves, was pouring up the aisles. Duncan, through all
his anger and apprehension, felt a little thrill of superiority over
these departing playgoers as he and his stepmother were admitted behind
the scenes. He was young, and the imagined romance of green-rooms and
footlights appealed to him.
The company, suddenly summoned, appeared in various stages of street
and stage attire. Peg, a handsome young woman with brilliant color and
golden hair, still wore her brocaded gown and patches, and wore, in
addition, a slightly affronted look at this unprecedented proceeding.
The other members of the cast, yawning, slightly curious, were grouped
about in the great draughty space between the wings that it cost Duncan
some little effort to realize was the stage.
From this group, as Margaret followed the stage manager into the circle
of light, a little woman suddenly detached herself, and, running across
the stage and breaking into sobs as she ran, she was in Margaret's arms
in a second.
"Oh, Meg, Meg, Meg!" she cried, laughing and crying at the same time.
"I knew you'd come! I knew you'd manage it somehow! I've been praying
so--I've been watching the clock! Oh, Meg," she went on pitifully,
fumbling blindly for a handkerchief, "he's been suffering so, and I had
to leave him! They thought he was asleep, but when I tried to loosen
his little hand he woke up!"
"Mary--Mary!" said Mrs. Coppered, soothingly, patting the bowed
shoulder. No one else moved; a breathless attention held the group. "Of
course I came," she went on, with a little triumphant laugh, "and I
think everything's ALL right!"
"Yes, I know," said Mrs. Penrose, with a convulsive effort at
self-control. She caught Margaret's soft big muff, and drew it across
her eyes. "I'm ru-ru-ruining your fur, Margaret!" she said, laughing
through tears, "but--but seeing you this way, and realizing that I
could go--go--go to him now--"
"Mary, you must NOT cry this way," said Mrs. Coppered, seriously. "You
don't want little Phil to see you with red eyes, do you? Mr. Wyatt and
I have been talking it over," she went on, "but it remains to be seen,
dear, if all the members of the company are willing to go to the
trouble." Her apologetic look went around the listening circle. "It
inconveniences every one, you know, and it would mean a rehearsal
tonight--this minute, in fact, when every one's tired and cold." Her
voice was soothing, very low. But the gentle tones carried their
message to every one there. The mortal cleverness of such an appeal
struck Duncan sharply, as an onlooker.
The warm-hearted star, Eleanor Forsythe, whose photographs Duncan had
seen hundreds of times, was the first to respond with a half-indignant
protest that SHE wasn't too tired and cold to do that much for the dear
kiddy, and other volunteers rapidly followed suit. Ten minutes later
the still tearful little mother was actually in a cab whirling through
the dark streets toward the hospital where the child lay, and a
rehearsal was in full swing upon the stage of the Colonial. Only the
few actors actually necessary to the scenes in which Mabel figures need
have remained; but a general spirit of sympathetic generosity kept
almost the entire cast. Mr. Penrose, as Triplet, had the brunt of the
dialogue to carry; and he and Margaret, who had quite unaffectedly laid
aside her furs and entered seriously into the work of the evening,
remained after all the others had lingered away, one by one.
Duncan watched from one of the stage boxes, his vague, romantic ideas
of life behind the footlights rather dashed before the three hours of
hard work were over. This was not very thrilling; this had no especial
romantic charm. The draughts, the dust, the wide, icy space of the
stage, the droning voices, the crisp interruptions, the stupid
"business," endlessly repeated, all seemed equally disenchanting. The
stagehands had set the stage for the next day's opening curtain, and
had long ago departed. Duncan was cold, tired, headachy. He began to
realize the edge of a sharp appetite, too; he and Margaret had barely
touched their dinner, back at home those ages ago.
He could have forgiven her, he told himself, bitterly, if this plunge
into her old life had had some little glory in it. If, for instance,
Mrs. Gregory had asked her to play Lady Macbeth or Lady Teazle in
amateur theatricals at home, why one could excuse her for yielding to
the old lure. But this, this secondary part, these commonplace,
friendly actors, this tiring night experience, this eager deference on
her part to every one, this pitiful anxiety to please, where she
should, as Mrs. Carey Coppered, have been proudly commanding and
dictatorial--it was all exasperating and disappointing to the last
degree; it was, he told himself, savagely, only what one might have
expected!
Presently, when Duncan was numb in every limb, Margaret began to button
herself into her outer wraps, and, escorted by Penrose, they went to
supper. Duncan hesitated at the door of the cafe.
"This is an awful place, isn't it?" he objected. "You can't be going in
here!"
"One must eat, Duncan!" Mrs. Coppered said blithely, leading the way.
"And all the nice places are closed at this hour!" Duncan sullenly
followed; but, in the flood of reminiscences upon which she and Penrose
instantly embarked, his voice was not missed. Mollified in spite of
himself by delicious food and strong coffee, he watched them, the man's
face bright through its fatigue, his stepmother glowing and brilliant.
"I'll see this through for Dad's sake," said Duncan, grimly, to
himself; "but, when he finds out about it, she'll have to admit I
kicked the whole time!"
At four o'clock they reached the Penroses' hotel, where rooms were
secured for Duncan and Margaret. The boy, dropping with sleep, heard
her cheerfully ask at the desk to be called at seven o'clock.
"I've a cloak to buy," she explained, in answer to his glance of
protest, "and a hairdresser to see, and a hat to find--they may be
difficult to get, too! And I must run out and have just a glimpse of
little Phil, and get to the theatre by noon; there's just a little more
going over that second act to do! But don't you get up."
"I would prefer to," said Duncan, with dignity, taking his key.
But he did not wake until afternoon, when the thin winter sunlight was
falling in a dazzling oblong on the floor of his room; and even then he
felt a little tired and stiff. He reached for his watch--almost one
o'clock! Duncan's heart stood still. Had SHE overslept?
He sat up a little dazed, and, doing so, saw a note on the little table
by his bed. It was from Margaret, and ran: