"All right! Never mind! Don’t bother any more!" murmured Mrs. Russell at
last. "It’s a stupid story, anyway; and I suppose you’re getting sleepy.
If you’ll go down-stairs and fetch me another book, I’ll read myself to
sleep. There’s a package of new books Eddie brought home. Pick out
something that looks bright and jolly, will you? They’re on the table in
the library."
"I’ll have to get dressed first."
"No, you won’t. Put on my slippers and run down as you are. There’s not
a soul in the house but Polly and you and me and the servants, and
they’re all women. It’s just at the foot of the stairs."
So Angelica, shamefaced in her kimono and with her hanging hair, went
softly down the stairs. The halls were brightly lighted, but there was
no one about, and not a sound. She went into the library, which she
remembered having passed. It was fascinating to her at this hour--silent
and warm, with little glowing lamps in the corners and rows and rows of
orderly books.
On the long table in the center of the room lay the package she had been
told of. The paper was opened, and showed five or six fresh, brightly
bound books. Angelica inspected them with profound attention, for with
all her heart she desired to make an intelligent choice. At last she
picked out three, and was about to go up-stairs with them, when a voice
addressed her--a man’s voice.
"Are they for Mrs. Russell?" it said.
She started violently, dismayed at being seen by masculine eyes in such
a costume. He was standing in the doorway; evidently he had just come
in, for he carried his hat and stick. He wore a dinner-jacket, and it
was the first time Angelica had ever been spoken to by a man in a
dinner-jacket.
"Yes," she answered.
"All those books are good," he said. "I know she’ll like them all. I
picked them out for her."
She gave him a quick and stealthy look, and her heart beat faster. He
might, she thought, very well be the hero for whom she was waiting. He
was a tall, blond fellow with a little fair mustache, very
boyish-looking, very serious, not exactly handsome, but unquestionably
possessed of a certain distinction. She looked at him again, but this
time she met his eyes squarely, his shrewd gray eyes, and she saw quite
plainly that he was displeased, that he didn’t like to see girls in
kimonos in that library.
"Who are you?" he asked Angelica. "A new maid?"
"No!" she replied indignantly. "Not a maid. I’m her--I don’t know what
her name is--her companion."
He raised his eyebrows.
"I’ll take up the books," he said. "I want to speak to Mrs. Russell. You
needn’t trouble. Good night!"
He waved her out of the room ahead of him. She hurried, anxious to get
out of his sight, and went into her own room. Looking back, she saw that
he had left the door of Mrs. Russell’s room open, and she approached, to
listen, for she felt quite sure that the conversation would relate to
herself.
The young man had flung the books on the table, and was talking angrily.
"Then what did you do it for? You’ve no business to bring a girl like
that into the house!"
"She’s respectable," said Mrs. Russell.
"You don’t know. She doesn’t look it. Anyway, even if she is, she’s no
more fit to be a companion than--I don’t know what. It’s an insult to
Polly!"
"No, it isn’t. She’s a nice, cheerful girl, and she can be very useful.
She sews----”
"If you want her for a maid, call her a maid, and put her in a maid’s
room. Why did you put her there, at the end of the hall? One of the best
rooms!"
"To be near me."
"Near you? You said she was for Polly."
"That’s no reason why she shouldn’t help me now and then when I----”
"Now, look here!" interrupted the young man. "This is final. Either she
goes to-morrow, or you’ll put her in her proper place. I won’t have her
running around the house half-dressed. If she’s a maid, treat her as a
maid. If you want a companion, get one--a real one. What does Polly
say?"
"Polly hasn’t seen her yet. I engaged her. I went all the way into the
city to see her mother and find out about her. You know, Eddie, I’m
paying her out of my own pocket, because I feel that Polly shouldn’t be
left alone."
"You ought to know better than to pick out a girl like this one!" he
cried. "I’m disgusted. You’re so anxious to get rid of the trouble of
looking after Polly that you’d pick up any one, out of the street--any
one cheap!"
He was very angry; his fair face flushed; he twisted his little mustache
with a trembling hand.
"I’d like to see her----” he began again.
Angelica waited to hear no more. She rushed back to her own room and
began to dress with frantic haste.
"Well!" she said to herself. "It’s all up, now! I never thought it would
last, anyway."
At length she was dressed, shabby and dusty enough in her street
clothes, but feeling far better prepared for an encounter with the blond
young man.
"All right!" she said. "All right! Let him fire me! I don’t care. I
never pretended to be any different from what I am, anyway."
She was defiant, but she wasn’t resentful, any more than she would have
been if the boss of a factory had reproved her. She had grown up in the
consciousness that there were in the world people who had a right to get
angry and to reprove--teachers, policemen, bosses, rich people.
There was a knock at the door, and a voice informed her sharply that
Mrs. Russell was waiting for her. To her surprise and relief she found
Mrs. Russell alone, and yawning.
"I suppose we’ll have to go to bed now," she said. "It’s after twelve;
so I’ll say good night to you."
"Good night," Angelica answered.
She supposed that she was to be allowed to leave the room; but she had
quite half an hour’s work still to do. She had to brush and braid Mrs.
Russell’s short, curly hair; she had to go down-stairs again and fetch a
bottle of spring water from the ice-chest; she had to put away dozens of
things, and then to set out on the table lip-salve, cold cream, and some
sort of medicine; and then to pull up the blinds, put out the light, and
grope her way out in the dark.
She was in the habit of going to bed very much earlier; yet, once more
in her own room, she didn’t feel at all sleepy. She lay stretched out on
the bed, with her hands clasped under her head, meditating about Mrs.
Russell, who was altogether outside her experience, and the blond young
man with the little mustache. She wondered who he was.
"Her son, I guess," she reflected. "Anyway, he’s pretty cross to her. I
wouldn’t put up with it, if I was her. One of these rich young fellers,
he is, and as spoiled as can be!"
Then she didn’t think about him any more; he was no longer the possible
hero of her romance. He was so obviously not for her. Her beauty, her
impudence, would never impress him. Her mind dwelt for an instant with a
sort of shadowy regret upon his nice young face; then the current of her
thought changed, and ran back into the channel it had made for
itself--that of speculating upon her own future.
"My first night in this house!" she said. "I wonder what’s going to
happen to me here?"
She couldn’t invent or imagine anything. Certainly she couldn’t even
dimly foresee the truth.