PEGGY COMES TO A DECISION
IT was mid-afternoon on a crisp February day when Graham called Peggy
on the phone. In his preliminary "Hello" she detected an unwonted note
of excitement.
"Hello, Graham. Yes, it's Peggy."
"I want you to take dinner with me to-night."
"Take dinner? Why, I can't possibly, Graham. I've got quite a lot of
cramming to do for the mid-year examinations. And I haven't even looked
at my lessons for to-morrow."
"Hang your lessons."
Peggy pricked up her ears. "What did you say?" she queried
incredulously.
"I said, 'Hang your lessons,' and I'll add, 'Hang your examinations.'
I've got to see you and have a long talk."
One of the advantages of habitual faithfulness to duty is that the rare
relapse into irresponsibility comes as a delightful holiday. Peggy's
face suddenly crinkled into a charming smile. It was a pity Graham
could not see it.
"Oh, well," she said demurely, "if it's terribly important--"
"It is."
"Then I suppose I must let you have your way."
"I'll call for you at half past six and we'll dine at the McLaughlin."
"The McLaughlin! You haven't happened to come into a fortune since last
evening, have you!"
"Not exactly. It's a celebration."
"What for?"
"That's telling. See you at six-thirty, Peggy darling. Good-by." And
Graham rang off in a hurry, as if he feared her powers of persuasion,
and suspected that if he gave her half a chance she would have the
whole story out of him over the wire.
Peggy went back to her books with a smile which proved her thinking
of something very different from history or economics. She was well
aware that she would go to the class next day without her usual
careful preparation, but having made up her mind to accede to Graham's
request, she had no intention of spoiling her pleasure by thinking of
slighted tasks. And though she made a valiant effort at concentration
in the short time left her for study, her attempt was not particularly
successful. The dinner was a celebration, Graham had said. She racked
her brain to recall some anniversary that had momentarily escaped her
recollection, but without results.
Peggy was dressed by six o'clock, having spent an unprecedentedly long
time over her toilet. The McLaughlin, though not the largest hotel in
the city, was one of the most exclusive, and the costumes seen in the
dining-room were frequently of an elegance compared with which Peggy's
little evening frock was almost dowdy. But neither at the McLaughlin
nor elsewhere was one likely to see a face more charming than that
which looked back at Peggy from her mirror, so that her haunting fear
that Graham might be ashamed of her was entirely unfounded.
Mrs. Raymond left the dining table to see the young couple off. "Have
a good time, dears," she said, and was pleased but not surprised when
Graham followed Peggy's example, and stooping kissed her. She stood at
the window looking after them as they went down the street. What a dear
boy Graham was! In the far-off, nebulous future when Peggy began to
think of being married, she could trust her to Graham without a fear.
And then they would live near, where she could see Peggy every day.
Mrs. Raymond told herself she would not have anything different.
"Mother," called Mr. Raymond's voice from the dining-room, "your
dinner's getting cold."
Meanwhile Peggy, tilting her head on one side like an inquisitive
canary, was asking Graham, "What is it we are going to celebrate?"
"Washington's birthday and the Fourth of July, Christmas and New
Year's."
"Now, Graham, really I want to know."
"I'll tell you when the time comes. It's not the sort of thing to be
sprung on the street."
"Oh, how interesting!" But though Peggy stopped asking questions, her
curiosity grew prodigiously. Silent as Graham was as to the occasion
of this unwonted festivity, she realized that there was about him
an atmosphere of suppressed excitement. Sometimes, when his eyes
were on her, he seemed to be looking through her at something big in
the distance. Peggy was at the age when thrills and mysteries are
always welcome. She climbed aboard the street-car all a-tingle with
pleasurable excitement.
The dining-room at the McLaughlin impressed Peggy with its grandeur.
The hour was still early for fashionable diners, and less than half of
the tables were occupied. But the rows of waiters in black clothes and
gleaming shirt fronts, and the scrape of violins in the background,
gave Peggy an uneasy sense of being out of place. But Graham, convinced
that he was escorting the queen rose of the rose-bud garden of girls,
walked to his place as sure of himself as a young prince. And what he
saw in Peggy's eyes was not of a sort to lessen his self-confidence.
Peggy soon perceived that her customary little hints regarding economy
were to have no weight on this particular occasion. Graham began
with oysters and then appealed to Peggy as to her choice in soups.
And perceiving that he was determined to be extravagant, for all she
could say or do, Peggy gave herself up to enjoying the fruits of his
extravagance. This was clearly Graham's night. Peggy decided not to ask
again about his secret till he told her of his own accord.
[Illustration: "PEGGY LOOKED AT HIM WITHOUT REPLYING"]
As a matter of fact, Graham seemed in no hurry to take her into his
confidence. The meal went on through its leisurely courses, the tables
about them gradually filling, till the attentive waiter set their
dessert before them--French pastries with small cups of deliciously
fragrant coffee. Peggy tasted and sipped and smiled, and looked across
the table with such an air of radiant happiness that if Graham had kept
the smallest fragment of a heart in his possession, he would have been
forced to surrender it on the spot.
He laid down his fork and leaned toward her. "Peggy, I've got my
promotion."
"Oh, Graham!"
"They want me to go to South America for two years," Graham
continued, speaking with curious breathlessness. "They're not asking
me to stay permanently, you understand. But they want a man here who's
thoroughly familiar with conditions down there."
Peggy looked at him without replying, all the radiant happiness drained
from her face. South America! Her sensations were almost the same as
when he went to France, except that now she had no patriotic ardor
to sustain her. He was to be away two years, and yet his mood was
exultant, and he seemed to expect her congratulations.
Peggy rallied her courage and lifted her eyes with a wan little smile.
"When--when do they want you to go?" Her fork clattered against her
plate, and she laid it down. She conceived on the instant an intense
loathing for French pastry.
"In July."
"Oh!" Peggy winked hard. It would be a shame to spoil that beautiful
dinner by crying. And besides, it was a long time before Graham would
have to go, from February to July. Then a dreadful thought wrung her
heart. If six months was a long time, what of two years?
Graham's face seemed to waver as he leaned toward her across the little
round table. His voice sounded far-off and unfamiliar. "What do you
say, Peggy? Shall we go?"
"I--I--what are you talking about Graham?"
"You're always saying how you'd love to travel. Don't you see this is
your chance."
"Do you--do you mean--"
"Yes, of course I do. Won't you marry me, Peggy, and go along? I can't
leave you for two years. I can't. When I came back from the other side
I promised myself I'd never be separated from you again by anything
less than a world war. If I went by myself, Peggy, it would be going
into exile for two years. But with you along, it would be a two-years'
honeymoon. Think what it would be to see those new countries together."
"I suppose it would be a good thing for our Spanish," said Peggy, and
the inane remark set them both to laughing, which undoubtedly was
a good thing. When the paroxysm was over, Peggy wiped her eyes and
struggled to be reasonable. "But, Graham, I don't graduate till the
twelfth of June."
"And I don't sail till the sixth of July. Loads of time."
"But I always meant to earn my living for a few years after I
graduated, before--"
"I wouldn't have stood for that, Peggy, not if I was making enough to
take care of you, and I shall be."
Peggy was breathing fast. It was hard to realize that she and Graham
were sitting there in the McLaughlin dining-room, discussing the
question of whether or not they should be married in July. For except
on one memorable occasion, when Graham had been on the point of going
across and Peggy had been ready to marry him at a moment's notice, she
had felt about her marriage much as her mother did, as if it belonged
to the misty, distant, indeterminate future. And now the six months
she had assured herself was a long time had dwindled down almost to
nothing. July! It was incredibly, overwhelmingly near.
"We'll have to see what father and mother think." She tried to make her
voice matter-of-fact, but it had an unnatural tension. Graham on the
other side of the little table, nodded agreement.
"Of course we'll see what they think. But we know they can say only
one thing. It's such a reasonable solution that only one opinion is
possible. Don't you like your dessert, Peggy? Won't you have some
ice-cream?"
Peggy protested she liked her desert, and finished it without tasting a
morsel. Then they went home and proceeded to bomb the peaceful Raymond
household with Graham's astounding proposition. And while Mrs. Raymond
began by pronouncing it out of the question, before the evening ended
she was driven to admit the reasonableness of Graham's plan. It was
true that Peggy's marriage would follow rather closely on the heels
of her graduation, but thanks to common-sense hours of sleep, and an
abundance of outdoor exercise, she had come through her four years'
college course in radiant health. A separation of two years just now
would be hard for both, and especially for Graham. Indeed Graham
frankly declared that he would not go without Peggy, and yet to refuse
such a chance was to prejudice his future success.
When Peggy went to bed that night she knew the whole thing was settled.
To be sure, both her father and mother had warned her against a hasty
decision, insisting that she take plenty of time to think the matter
over. But Peggy knew what the final verdict would be, and she was sure
Graham also knew it, by the triumph in his eyes as he kissed her good
night.
Changes! She lay in her little white bed and thought of the new life
opening before her, strange countries, unfamiliar tongues, alien
customs, even the dear, friendly constellations replaced by unknown
stars. And the queerest part of all was that she herself would no
longer be Peggy Raymond, but a strange young woman, Margaret Wylie by
name. Peggy gave a little incredulous laugh. It was astonishing how the
world had turned upside down since morning.