A DUEL FOR A BRACELET
All this while Marjorie and Mallory had sat watching, as kingfishers
shadow a pool, the door wherethrough the girl with the bracelet must
pass on her way to breakfast.
"She's taking forever with her toilet," sniffed Marjorie. "Probably
trying to make a special impression on you."
"She's wasting her time," said Mallory. "But what if she brings her
mother along? No, I guess her mother is too fat to get there and
back."
"If her mother comes," Marjorie decided, "I'll hold her while you take
the bracelet away from the--the--from that creature. Quick, here she
comes now! Be brave!"
Mallory wore an aspect of arrant cowardice: "Er--ah--I--I----"
"You just grab her!" Marjorie explained. Then they relapsed into
attitudes of impatient attention. Kathleen floated in and, seeing
Mallory, she greeted him with radiant warmth: "Good morning!" and
then, catching sight of Marjorie, gave her a "Good morning!" coated
with ice. She flounced past and Mallory sat inert, till Marjorie gave
him a ferocious pinch, whereupon he leaped to his feet:
"Oh, Miss--er--Miss Kathleen." Kathleen whirled round with a most
hospitable smile. "May I have a word with you?"
"Of course you can, you dear boy." Marjorie winced at this and writhed
at what followed: "Shan't we take breakfast together?"
Mallory stuttered: "I--I--no, thank you--I've had breakfast."
Kathleen froze up again as she snapped: "With
that--train-acquaintance, I suppose."
"Oh, no," Mallory amended, "I mean I haven't had breakfast."
But Kathleen scowled with a jealousy of her own: "You seem to be
getting along famously for mere train-acquaintances."
"Oh, that's all we are, and hardly that," Mallory hastened to say with
too much truth. "Sit down here a moment, won't you?"
"No, no, I haven't time," she said, and sat down. "Mamma will be
waiting for me. You haven't been in to see her yet?"
"No. You see----"
"She cried all night."
"For me?"
"No, for papa. He's such a good traveler--and he had such a good
start. She really kept the whole car awake."
"Too bad," Mallory condoled, perfunctorily, then with sudden
eagerness, and a trial at indifference: "I see you have that bracelet
still."
"Of course, you dear fellow. I wouldn't be parted from it for worlds."
Marjorie gnashed her teeth, but Kathleen could not hear that. She
gushed on: "And now we have met again! It looks like Fate, doesn't
it?"
"It certainly does," Mallory assented, bitterly; then again, with
zest: "Let me see that old bracelet, will you?"
He tried to lay hold of it, but Kathleen giggled coyly: "It's just an
excuse to hold my hand." She swung her arm over the back of the seat
coquettishly, and Marjorie made a desperate lunge at it, but missed,
since Kathleen, finding that Mallory did not pursue the fugitive hand,
brought it back at once and yielded it up:
"There--be careful, someone might look."
Mallory took her by the wrist in a gingerly manner, and said, "So
that's the bracelet? Take it off, won't you?"
"Never!--it's wished on," Kathleen protested, sentimentally. "Don't
you remember that evening in the moonlight?"
Mallory caught Marjorie's accusing eye and lost his head. He made a
ferocious effort to snatch the bracelet off. When this onset failed,
he had recourse to entreaty: "Just slip it off." Kathleen shook her
head tantalizingly. Mallory urged more strenuously: "Please let me see
it."
Kathleen shook her head with sophistication: "You'd never give it
back. You'd pass it along to that--train-acquaintance."
"How can you think such a thing?" Mallory demurred, and once more made
his appeal: "Please please, slip it off."
"What on earth makes you so anxious?" Kathleen demanded, with sudden
suspicion. Mallory was stumped, till an inspiration came to him: "I'd
like to--to get you a nicer one. That one isn't good enough for you."
Here was an argument that Kathleen could appreciate. "Oh, how sweet of
you, Harry," she gurgled, and had the bracelet down to her knuckles,
when a sudden instinct checked her: "When you bring the other, you can
have this."
She pushed the circlet back, and Mallory's hopes sank at the gesture.
He grew frantic at being eternally frustrated in his plans. He caught
Kathleen's arm and, while his words pleaded, his hands tugged:
"Please--please let me take it--for the measure--you know!"
Kathleen read the determination in his fierce eyes, and she struggled
furiously: "Why, Richard--Chauncey!--er--Billy! I'm amazed at you! Let
go or I'll scream!"
[Illustration: "WHY, RICHARD--CHAUNCEY!--ER--BILLY! I'M AMAZED AT YOU!
LET GO, OR I'LL SCREAM!"]
She rose and, twisting her arm from his grasp, confronted him with
bewildered anger. Mallory cast toward Marjorie a look of surrender and
despair. Marjorie laid her hand on her throat and in pantomime
suggested that Mallory should throttle Kathleen, as he had promised.
But Mallory was incapable of further violence; and when Kathleen, with
all her coquetry, bent down and murmured: "You are a very naughty boy,
but come to breakfast and we'll talk it over," he was so addled that
he answered: "Thanks, but I never eat breakfast."