Late one afternoon, midway of September, Susie, who had just returned
from a stroll, stood on the Logan portico watching the motors flit
past, and thinking a little mournfully that in a few days she must go
back to her boarding house and her place behind the library counter.
It was then that she observed Mr. Webster G. Burgess on his doorstep
adjoining, viewing the urban landscape reflectively. He was hatless and
in his hand he held a bit of yellow paper that resembled a telegram.
Noting Susie’s presence on the Logan veranda, he crossed the lawn in
her direction. She knew from a personal item in the afternoon paper
that Mr. Burgess had returned from his vacation, and that Mrs.
Burgess was to follow at once, accompanied by her younger sister,
Miss Wilkinson; and that she was to entertain immediately Mr. Brown
Pendleton, a wealthy young American explorer and archæologist, who was
coming to Indiana to deliver the dedicatory address at the opening of
the new Historical Museum at the state university. Mrs. Burgess always
entertained all the distinguished people who visited Indianapolis, and
it had occurred to Susan that by the exercise of ordinary vigilance she
might catch a glimpse of Brown Pendleton during his stay at the house
next door. Webster Burgess was a banker who had inherited his bank,
and he had always found life rather pleasant going. His wife diverted
him a good deal, and the fact that she played at being a highbrow
amused him almost more than anything else. He had kept his figure,
and at forty-two was still able to dance without fear of apoplexy. He
chose his haberdashery with taste, and sometimes he sent flowers to
ladies without inclosing his wife’s card; but his wife said this was
temperamental, which was a very good name for it.
Susie, holding her ground as Burgess advanced, composedly patted the
head of one of the bronze lions that guarded the entrance to the Logan
doors.
“Good evening! It’s mighty nice to see you back again,” said Burgess,
smiling.
It was at this instant that Susan, hearing the god of adventure
sounding the call to arms, became Susie again.
“I’m very glad to see you, Mr. Burgess,” she replied; and ceasing to
fondle the bronze lion’s left ear she gave the banker her hand. “Summer
is hanging on,” observed Susie; “it’s quite warm this evening.”
“It is, indeed, and most of our neighbors seem to be staying away late;
but I’m glad you’re back.”
Susie was glad he was back. Her superficial knowledge of Mr. Webster
Burgess bore wholly upon his standing as a banker. In the year she
had spent in his ancestral city she had never heard anything to
justify a suspicion that he was a gentleman given to flirtations with
strange young women. There was something quite cozy and neighborly in
his fashion of addressing her. His attitude seemed paternal rather
than otherwise. He undoubtedly mistook her for a member of the Logan
household. It crossed her mind that he probably knew little of the
Logan family, who had occupied the new house only to leave it; but she
knew there were several Logan girls, for she was occupying the room
designed for one of them.
“This is what I call downright good luck!” Burgess continued, glancing
at his watch. “Mrs. Burgess reaches town at six, with her sister--and
Brown Pendleton, the explorer, and so on. We met him at Little Boar’s
Head, and you know how Mrs. Burgess is--she wanted to be sure he saw
this town right. A mighty interesting chap--his father left him a
small mint, and he spends his income digging. He’s dug up about all
the Egyptians, Babylonians and Ninevites. He’s coming out to make a
speech--thinks of prying into the mound-builders; though I don’t see
why any one should. Do you?”
“On the whole I think the idea rather tickles me,” said Susie. “I
always thought it would be fun to try a lid-lifter on the dead past.”
Mr. Burgess took note of her anew and chuckled.
“Open up kings like sardines! I like your way of putting it.”
“A few canned kings for domestic consumption,” added Susie, thinking
that he was very easy to talk to. The fact that he did not know her
from a daughter of the royal house of Rameses made not the slightest
difference now that the adventurous spirit of the old Susie days
possessed her.
Mr. Burgess was scrutinizing the telegram again.
“I want you to dine with us this evening--as a special favor, you
know. It’s rather sudden, but Mrs. Burgess has a sudden way of doing
things. Just as I left my office I got this wire ordering me to produce
the most presentable girl I could find for dinner. Pendleton hates
big functions, but I nailed Billy Merrill at the club on my way up,
according to instructions--you can always get Billy; but I went through
the telephone book without finding any unattached woman of suitable age
I would dare take a shot at, knowing my wife’s prejudices. And then I
looked over here and saw you.”
His manner conveyed, with the utmost circumspection, the idea that
seeing her had brightened the world considerably.
“Certainly, Mr. Burgess,” replied Susie, without the slightest
hesitation or qualm. “At seven, did you say?”
“Seven-thirty we’d better say. There’s my machine and I’ve got to go to
the station to meet them.”
As Susan, the thing would have been impossible; as Susie, it seemed
the most natural thing in the world. Burgess was backing down the
steps. Every instant reduced the possibility of retreat; but the fact
was, that she exulted in her sin. She was an impostor and she rejoiced
shamelessly in being an impostor. And yet it did not seem altogether
square to accept Mr. Burgess’s invitation to dinner when it would
undoubtedly involve him in difficulties with his wife, whom she had
never seen in her life.
Burgess paused and wheeled round abruptly.
Her Susiness experienced a shock--the incident, in her hasty
conjecture, was already closed--for he said:
“By-the-way, what is your name anyhow?”
“Susie,” she said, lifting her chin Susily.
Mr. Burgess laughed, as though it were perfectly obvious that she was
a Susie--as though any one at a glance ought to know that this young
person in the white flannel skirt and blue shirt-waist was a Susie,
ordained to be so called from the very first hour of creation.
“Just for fun, what’s the rest of it?” he asked.
“Parker, please. I’m not even a poor relation of the Logans.”
“I didn’t suppose you were; quite and distinctly not!” he declared as
though the Logans were wholly obnoxious. “I never saw you before in my
life--did I?”
“Never,” said Susie, giving him the benefit of her blue eyes.
Burgess rubbed his ear reflectively.
“I think I’m in for a row,” he remarked in an agreeable tone, as though
rows of the sort he had in mind were not distasteful to him.
“Of course,” said Susie with an air of making concessions, “if you
really didn’t mean to ask me to dinner, or have changed your mind now
that you find I’m a stranger and a person your wife would never invite
to her house, we’ll call the party off.”
“Heavens, no! You can’t send regrets to a dinner at the last minute.
And if you don’t show up I’m going to be in mighty bad. You see----” He
gazed at Susie with the keen scrutiny he reserved for customers when
they asked to have their lines of credit extended, and he carefully
weighed the moral risk. “We seem to be on amazingly intimate terms,
considering our short acquaintance. There’s something about you that
inspires confidence.”
“I’m much uplifted by this tribute,” said Susie with a Susesque touch
that escaped her so naturally, so easily, that she marveled at herself.
Burgess smiled broadly.
“I’m afraid,” he remarked, “that you don’t quite fill the bill; but
you’ll do--you’ve got to do!”
He handed her the telegram he had retained in his hand and watched her
face as she read:
P. is greatly taken with Floy, and we must give her every chance.
Pick up an uninteresting young man and one of the least attractive of
the older girls for dinner tonight. This is important Make no mistake.
“Those are my instructions. Can you ever forgive me?”
“With my hair brushed straight back, they say I’m quite homely,”
observed Susie sighing.
“I shouldn’t do my worst,” said the banker, “where Nature has been so
generous.”
“It seems,” observed Susie meditatively, “that I’m your deliberate
choice as a foil for your sister-in-law, by sheer force of my
unattractiveness.”
“I’m slightly nearsighted,” replied the banker. “It’s a frightful
handicap.”
“I can see that glasses would be unbecoming to you.”
“The matter of eyes,” said the banker, stroking a lion, “is not one I
should trust myself to discuss with you. Do you mind telling me what
you’re doing here?”
“Cutting the leaves in the books and making a card catalogue. I use the
typewriter with a dexterity that has been admired.”
“A person of education, clearly.”
“French and German were required by my college; and I speak English
with only a slight Onondaga accent, as you observe.”
Her essential Susiness seemed to be communicating itself to the banker.
His chauffeur loosened a raucous blast of the horn warningly.
“I fear your time is wasted. The Logans will never read those books.
It’s possible that the hand of Fate guided me across the lawn to
deliver you from the lions. The thought pleases me. To continue our
confidences, I will say that, noble woman though my wife is, her sister
has at times annoyed me. And when I left Little Boar’s Head I saw that
Pendleton suspected that we were trying to kidnap him.”
“And I take it that the natural fellow-feeling of man for man would
mitigate your sorrow if the gentleman whom your wife is carrying home
in a birdcage should not, in fact, become your brother-in-law.”
“It would be indelicate for me to go so far as that; but Floy has
always had a snippy way with me. I should like to see her have to work
for the prize.”
“My dinner frock is three years old, but I’ll see what I can do to
become a natural hazard. You’d better move upon the station--the blasts
of that horn are not soothing to the nerves.”