Hester never remembered leaving the car or how she got home after the
fatal catastrophe, but indelibly printed on Julie's mind would always be
the picture of a wide-eyed breathless girl who rushed in upon her and
threw a mangled package on the table.
"Oh, my dear! what is the matter?" cried Julie.
But Hester could not speak.
Julie picked up the battered box, disclosing the cake within crushed to
a pancake. She turned to find Hester's head buried in her arms; the girl
was sobbing convulsively.
"Never mind, dear," said Julie, stroking her head sympathetically, "it
would be much worse if you were hurt too."
"I am not crying," the younger girl asserted stoutly; "not crying at
all." She spoke in short gasps that were strangely like sobs, but Julie
ignored them. "I am all out of breath from running, that is all, and I
did not fall, you goose! A woman sat on me!" She broke into a peal of
hysterical laughter.
It was Julie's turn to be speechless now.
"If she had just sat on _me_ it wouldn't have mattered but she tumbled
in the car before I knew it and there is the result!" She waved her hand
tragically toward the table and wiped her eyes.
"We'll make another one right away, dear."
"Of course we will," responded Hester, pulling off her hat and coat and
flinging them down impatiently; "but it breaks my heart to see such a
ruin of all our work not to mention the waste of materials!"
Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall;
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;
And all the king's horses and all the king's men--
sang Julie, suggestively, but was not allowed to finish the ditty, for
Hester said, with a thump on the table:
"We will put this together again double quick and I will get it to Miss
Ware before dark, you see if I don't."
"You had better let me go next time, Hester," said Julie, getting out
the cooking utensils, "you will be tired to death."
"No, I won't; I have undertaken to do this thing, and I'll put it
through if it takes forever," with which characteristic remark she set
to work again.
The second effort in the culinary line was, if possible, more successful
than the first and immediately after their simple lunch of bread and
milk, Hester set forth again. The storm had ceased, and to the immense
delight of Peter Snooks, Hester confided to him that she should walk and
a certain good little dog that she knew should go too. Julie laughed at
this determination to avoid the car and called her superstitious. She
laughed, too, but refused to analyze her sensations.
She found Miss Ware, when she was ushered into her presence, in rather
an aggressive mood, which caused the girl to look on with some
nervousness as she opened the box and surveyed the loaf critically.
"Umph!" she said, examining it through her lorgnette, "did you do that,
or Bridget?"
"We did it, Miss Ware. Bridget knows nothing of fancy cooking."
"And you do, it seems. It was an odd trick for a girl to pick up in
Virginia, and an undesirable one."
"We look at things differently, Miss Ware," Hester said, with
considerable asperity. "I don't call it undesirable if it proves a way
of supporting ourselves. I would not choose it--to cook for a
living--but we've no choice in the matter whatever."
"Your father is very much to blame, Hester. He should have looked after
your interests better when he saw the crash coming. There was no need
that you should be left absolutely penniless."
Hester sprang to her feet and confronted Miss Ware like a young tigress.
"You shall not say such things about Dad. I will not listen--I--"
"Hoighty toighty!" broke in Miss Ware, "what a temper! You will have to
curb that, my dear Hester, if you expect to get on in the world--as
cooks!"
The girl flushed crimson, and bit her lip in an effort to regain her
self-control.
"I--I beg your pardon," she faltered. "I--I never knew I had a temper
before. It's--it's one of the new things I am learning." A sudden mist
came before her, and drawing near she laid her hand on the older woman
with an appealing touch. "Don't say unkind things about Daddy, please,
Miss Ware; they are not true, and I--I can't bear it."
"Let's get to business," said Miss Ware, who dreaded a scene above
everything. "What do you mean to charge for your cake?"
"Fifty cents." Hester was now quite herself again, and went on rapidly,
"I want to ask you if you will speak about our work to your friends. I
know it is asking a great deal under the circumstances, but we are such
strangers here in Radnor we really do not know any one to ask such a
favor of but you and Dr. Ware."
"At least you have a champion in him."
Hester's eyes shone. "Next to Dad we love him better than any one in the
world."
"Then why don't you behave sensibly, and come here and live, and let me
take you about in society, as I meant to do this winter? I really looked
forward to chaperoning you and Julie--you're very unusual girls. Now
give up this nonsense of yours and behave properly."
"Oh, Miss Ware, must we go all over that again? Won't you try to see it
our way, as--as your brother does? He never even talked of our coming
here to live, he understands so well that we want to be independent. I
know we must be a great disappointment to you. Cousin Nancy in Virginia
feels just as you do, too. Ever so many persons have offered us a home.
You can't think what beautiful letters we've had from Dad's friends
through the west. If it were possible to move him we'd go out there to
try our fortune; there are so many splendid out-of-door kinds of work a
girl can do in that big country. But Dad can't be moved, and we've got
to do the best we can right here in Radnor." She spoke convincingly and
with a certain submissiveness that sat oddly on her young shoulders.
Miss Ware, twisting her rings round on her fingers with a contemplative
air was wondering where the child got that dignity and poise.
"I've no patience with you whatever," she said finally, after a long
pause, in which Hester imagined she had been waging an inward conflict.
"I am wholly out of sympathy with your ideas, but you cannot be allowed
to starve to death, and if cooking is the height of your ambition--"
"It isn't the height of our ambition," interrupted Hester, for youth is
impatient of being misunderstood; "it is only the thing that is nearest
at hand."
"Your education must be sadly deficient," regarding the girl critically.
"I always told Philip the harum-scarum way you were being brought up was
perfectly ruinous. If you had gone to school like other girls, you would
be qualified for some lady-like position."
This was too much for Hester. "You need not trouble to do anything about
the cake, Miss Ware," she said, proudly, "and I shan't come here again
to hear my father insulted. And we are not going to starve either," she
cried, her girlish wrath rising. "We are going to succeed and be a
credit to the best education in the world!"
She threw back her head and gazed straight into the older woman's eyes
with a fearless look that was hard to meet. Only the fingers curled
tight into the palms of her hands, betrayed the mighty effort she was
making to hold herself in check, and this Miss Ware did not see, for
Hester's unflinching eyes held her with a strange fascination. In
another moment the girl had turned and left the room.
For a while after her departure Miss Ware sat motionless like a person
who has received a shock. Presently she began to toy with her lorgnette,
dangling it back and forth on its chain with a swinging movement as if
keeping time to a rhythmic train of thought. This was not, indeed, the
case, and the action arose from nervousness, for the usual calm
placidity of her mind was sadly ruffled. She was not in the habit of
being contradicted, particularly by what she was pleased to call "a
young person"; but she was one of those women who having said their
worst, proceed to contradict themselves by an interest in that which
they have most condemned, and she was now speculating as to whether it
would not be expedient to take Hester's cake to the meeting of her
sewing class the following day, and possibly get an order or two there
for it.
Only a true Radnorite could realize the possibilities that opened up to
one who was introduced as a subject of discussion at _the_ Sewing Class
of Radnor. For in the fashionable and exclusive set in which Miss Ware
had her being it was a function of tremendous importance, with sacred
rites known only to the initiated. In one another's drawing-rooms, on
two mornings of the month, forty chosen spirits met to sew for the
poor--that great, clamorous, all-devouring body from which there is no
escape. This was ostensibly the purpose; in reality sewing was a minor
consideration, albeit much work was accomplished. The chief end of its
existence was to discuss, direct and control the movements of that
exclusive portion of Radnor society of which it was a part and upon
which it sat in fortnightly judgment. Following this arduous but
important morning duty came the luncheon, and it was of that Miss Ware
was thinking in connection with the cake.
When Hester left Miss Ware she ran down the stairs to the lower hall,
where she had left Peter Snooks with strict orders to remain until her
return. There she found him waiting to greet her with joyous caperings
of delight.
Dr. Ware and a tall, clean-shaven, athletic-looking man came out from
the office and encountered her.
"Ah, you, Hester?" said the Doctor. "Wait a moment, my dear. I have a
book here that I want you to take round to read to your father."
He vanished, and the stranger glanced at the girl, hesitated, and then
stooping patted the dog. "You've a fine fox-terrier," he said in a deep,
rich voice, looking up.
"We think so," replied Hester, who couldn't for the life of her conceal
her pleasure at hearing Peter Snooks praised.
At that moment the Doctor came out again.
"Why, Landor," he said, "I beg your pardon; I forgot all about you when
I saw Hester. That is a way the minx has--of driving everything else out
of my head. Hester, my dear, this is Kenneth Landor, just up from Texas
to have a look at effete civilization--you have heard me speak of him
often--Mr. Landor, Miss Dale."
The young people bowed.
"Don't let him pose as a cowboy or anything interesting like that,"
continued the Doctor, "for he isn't really--he only plays at things.
Takes a peep here and there over the continent, and pretends he is this
and that and the other, as the mood seizes him. A rolling stone, eh,
Landor?" turning with an affectionate, quizzical look at the man beside
him.
"Oh! go on, Doctor; pile it on--don't leave me a shred of character. His
veracity is absolutely unquestioned, of course, Miss Dale?"
"Of course! He has made you interesting already."
The Doctor laughed. "How one's motives are mistaken. That was the last
thing I meant to do!"
Hester looked up at the Doctor, gleams of mischief in her eyes. "You
being you," she said, "it couldn't be otherwise." With which ambiguous
remark she went out the door.
Landor followed her down the steps. "Miss Dale," he asked, "may I walk
along with you? I fancy I am going your way." Landor's way was usually
where he chose to make it.
Hester acquiesced simply. She had been accustomed to the society of men
since she could toddle, and felt no embarrassment in the presence of a
stranger. Landor noted the free, swinging motion with which she kept
step with him as they went down the street.
"You are not a true Radnorite," he said abruptly.
"No, I am not. Why?"
"Radnor girls do not walk as you do."
"I am half inclined to believe you are a cowboy, after all, Mr. Landor."
"Why?"
"Are we playing twenty questions? You have bad manners, a habit of
dealing in personalities--we call it impertinence."
"Twenty questions," he repeated, ignoring her rebuke. "Why, I have not
heard that mentioned for years. It is a favorite game in Radnor, isn't
it?"
"I am sure I don't know," she said wearily; "I know very little about
Radnor."
"And I less," he said. "I've been away so much of the time. But there
were certain things taken into my innermost being in my youth, along
with the air I breathed, I suppose, that no amount of absence will
eradicate."
"For instance?" she said, with feigned interest, for her mind kept
wandering off to her recent interview with Miss Ware, and she wished she
had not allowed him to accompany her.
"Well, the question of residence, you know. The few acres of sacred soil
in Radnor on which it is permissible to live. I remember as a little boy
how my nurse only allowed me to play with children whose parents lived
on the water side of Crana Street or the sunny side of Belton Avenue.
Any other than those and the streets immediately intersecting was beyond
the pale of civilization, even to her. It is odd, isn't it?" smiling
down at her.
"What is odd, the fact or your acceptance of it?" There was a little
ring in her voice which struck the man's alert ear.
A look of surprise came into his handsome dark face. "Am I walking too
fast for you, Miss Dale?" he asked, pleasantly.
That was the second time he had put aside a thrust of hers with some
trifling, irrelevant remark, and it tended to heighten rather than
soothe her growing irritation.
"I think," she said, stopping abruptly on the corner, "that I shall say
good morning to you here. I do not happen to live in that sacred
locality you mention, and I would not for worlds take you beyond the
pale."
"Miss Dale," he gasped, "you don't think I abide by any such
nonsense--you are doing me a great injustice. Surely you are not going
to dismiss me!"
"Yes," she said, smiling, and showing her dimples in a sudden access of
pleasure at the thought of getting rid of him, "I really believe I am."
He lifted his hat, and stood for some moments on the corner watching her
vanish from sight. How slender she was, and graceful, and what a sweet
little smile had accompanied her nod of farewell! Now he thought of it,
her eyes had queer lights in them, baffling, as if she were laughing at
him all the time. And her tone was half mocking, too, though he had
taken it seriously enough in all conscience. Was she serious, or had he
made an idiot of himself? This latter contingency was not one which
presented itself with marked frequency to the mind of Kenneth Landor,
and therefore gave him much food for reflection as the day wore on.