Probably if one read the memoirs of Napoleon, the dispatches of
Wellington and the commentaries of Cæsar one would find a place where
the author asserts that the best general is he who takes quickest
advantage of chance. Lita, entering her mother's room with her
head bent over a fastening of her dress, was wondering what made
some fasteners cling like leeches and others droop apart like limp
handshakes. For the first few minutes she had no idea what her mother
was talking about. She was prepared to feel guilty--she was guilty, but
she had written no letter.
"Writing a letter like that--a vulgar letter--and making me take you
to his play--and coming home with him, when I was actually waiting at
the gate for you. Perhaps you were not even on that train at all--so
terribly deceitful--as if I were your enemy instead of your mother. I
felt there was something queer about you at the play! An actor! I wish
you knew something about actors in private life. And Valentine of all
people! A man--"
Mrs. Hazlitt paused. She knew nothing about Valentine's private life;
but she thought it was pretty safe to make that pause as if it were all
too awful to discuss.
"Your father must be told of this. It will shock him very much."
That was the phrase that gave Lita her great idea. Not since she was
four years old had she heard the words "your father" spoken in that
tone. Perhaps after all, it was not necessary to die in order to
reconcile your parents; perhaps it was enough to let them think you
were undesirably in love. She had a moment to consider this notion
while her mother, in a short frilled petticoat, with her blond hair
about her shoulders, was running on about what Mr. Hazlitt would say to
this man.
Lita said at a venture, "Mr. Valentine doesn't even know my name. He
won't have any idea what father is talking about."
"Indeed?" cried Mrs. Hazlitt. "Your father is not a man who talks
without contriving to make himself understood. And as to Valentine's
not knowing your name, you'll find he knows it--and the amount of
your fortune, too, probably. Little schoolgirls have very little
interest for older men, I can tell you, unless-- And such a letter too.
'Like they was pigmies.' If you must be vulgar, at least try to be
grammatical."
"Shall you see my father when he comes for me?"
"Of course I shall not see him; but I shall take care that he knows
the facts." At the same time, Lita could not help noticing that Mrs.
Hazlitt refused to wear the garment Margaret had left out for her, and
put on, with apparent unconsciousness, a new French tea gown in mauve
and silver. "He will tell you better than I can what sort of a man this
Valentine is."
"But, mother, is father's judgment of men to be depended on? You said
about his lawyers that he had the faculty of collecting about him the
most inefficient--"
"I never said any such thing--or rather, it was entirely different. How
can you speak like that of your father? But it's my own fault, treating
you as if you were a companion instead of a silly child."
This was war. Lita withdrew into herself. Parents, she reflected, did
not really quite play the game; they couldn't belittle a fellow parent
one day, and the next, when they needed to use force, rush away into
the wings and dress him up as an ogre. After all the things her mother
had said about her father, how could she expect him to inspire fear?
And yet Lita knew that she was a little afraid.
Then Freebody the butler came up to say that Mr. Hazlitt was waiting
in his car for Miss Hazlitt. Freebody had been with the Hazlitts
before their divorce, and when the split came had preferred to remain
with Mrs. Hazlitt, although he had been offered inducements by the
other side. In her bitterness of spirit she had felt it a triumph that
Freebody had chosen her household. She had particularly valued his
reason for staying with her. He had said he did not care to work for
stage people. This was wonderful to quote. It let people know that
her husband's second wife had been an actress, and moreover a kind of
actress that Freebody did not care to work for; and it could be told so
good-temperedly, as if it were a joke on Freebody. She had always felt
grateful to him.
Now she sealed the incriminating note in another envelope and gave it
to Freebody.
"Give this to Mr. Hazlitt," she said, "and tell him it was found in
the pocket of Miss Lita's coat"; and she added, when he had gone down
again, "You can explain the rest yourself."
"No, mother," said Lita; "if you want any explaining done you must do
it yourself."
Mrs. Hazlitt was still protesting against this suggestion when Freebody
came back and said that Mr. Hazlitt was in the drawing-room, and would
be very much obliged to Mrs. Hazlitt if she could arrange to see him
for just five minutes. There was a pause; Mrs. Hazlitt and Lita looked
at each other; and Freebody, just as much interested as anyone, looked
at no one. Then Mrs. Hazlitt said they would both go down.
And so for the first time since she was five years old Lita stood in
the room with both her parents--her mother trembling so that the silk
lining of her tea gown rustled with a soft, continuous whispering like
the wind in dead leaves, and her father, white and impressive, with his
crush hat under one arm and the open letter held at arm's length so
that he could read it without his glasses. Something hurt and twisted
came to rest in Lita by the mere fact that the three of them were
together.
Her father spoke first, and his voice was not quite natural, as he
said, "It was kind of you to come down, Alita. I know it is exceedingly
painful to you--"
"I've done a good many painful things in my life for Lita."
"I know, I know," he answered gently; "and this not the least. But this
letter--I don't exactly understand it."
"Have you read it?"
"Not entirely."
"Well, read it--read it," said Mrs. Hazlitt, as if he ought to see
that he couldn't understand anything until he had read it; but every
time he began to read it she began to explain all the hideousness of
Lita's conduct; and when he looked up to listen to her she said, with a
sort of weary patience, "Won't you please read the letter? Then we can
discuss it."