A TELEPHONE CALL
Maud Carmine was slowly pulling off her gloves before the fire in the
old-fashioned drawing-room of the old-fashioned down-town house where
she and her mother lived alone. It was not five o'clock, but the
evenings were so short now that she hesitated whether or not to turn on
the lights, but the firelight was brilliant and so much more attractive
than electricity, no matter how softly shaded that might be.
Yes, the firelight was so bright that in its radiance she could see her
figure reflected in the long mirror between the windows with its ornate
and early Victorian frame. She walked forward and standing before it
gazed at herself with a little smile. She was not a pretty woman, but
she was certainly a striking and attractive one and quite beautifully
gowned. That was the most noticeable thing about her, the _dernier cri_
worn with style and distinction. Her heart went out in gratitude to
Perdita.
While she stood there still surveying herself Wallace Martin was
announced.
"And no tea here for you," said Maud. "I've been out all afternoon.
Mother is gadding somewhere at this unconscionable hour, so I suppose
they thought I didn't want any. I'll send for some and it will be here
in a jiffy."
"I do want some, and some solid substantial bread and butter," confessed
Martin. "I'm hungry. I'm dining out to-night, but the dinner is set for
some unholy late hour, and I've been at a rehearsal all afternoon."
"A rehearsal of your own play?"
He nodded. "My very own," he said. "One of the million or two I've
written has actually been accepted."
"Oh, Wallace!" She held out her hands, her interest and pleasure showing
plainly in her voice. "I am more than delighted. It seems too good to be
true."
"Don't be too enthusiastic yet," he strove to speak dryly. "It may be
accepted by the managers, it is still a question whether it will be
accepted by the public. It's run one gantlet, but whether it will run
two remains to be seen."
"Oh, Wallace," she cried again. "How can you be so pessimistic and calm
and calculating and all that? Why, I should be off my head with joy."
"I am," he said tersely. "Maud, don't tell any one, but I feel like a
Wright aeroplane."
"I won't breathe it," she promised gaily, "but please don't add to the
fame I'm sure you're going to get from that play, by flying over the
housetops to rehearsals. Oh, here is tea, muffins, bread and butter,
cake. Anything else you'll have?"
He sank back contentedly. "Nothing but to insist that you tell that 1820
butler of yours that you're not at home to any one else. It's too
deliciously cosy to be spoiled by women simpering and rustling and men
lounging and clattering in. Just the firelight--it's a little early for
fire, but this evening is quite chilly--and the tea-kettle singing in
that nice homey way, and even a big Persian cat on the hearthrug. It's
'ome and 'eaven. And what a contrast to last night! Better a dinner of
herbs like this, where love is, than the stalled ox of yestere'en."
A faint blush seemed to tinge Maud's cheek, but it may have been, after
all, but the flickering firelight.
"Last night wasn't awfully pleasant, was it?" she said with a little
sigh.
"Pleasant! It was deadly. Poor Maud!" helping himself to more bread and
butter. "How hard you worked!"
"How silly you are!" she cried indignantly. "Perfectly absurd the way
you all acted. Horrid-minded creatures, bored and trying to make a
situation out of nothing. Eugene Gresham and Dita have known each other
for years. There is even some kind of a southern relationship between
them, quite near, I believe."
"La, la!" said Wallace, again helping himself generously this time to
cake, "your loyalty is beautiful, but don't let it drive you to take a
stand you may have to abandon."
"Wallace!" she turned from him indignantly and the firelight showed that
her eyes were full of tears.
"I mean it just the same." He placed his tea-cup on the table and bent
toward her. "Look here, Maud, your friend, Mrs. Hepworth, is a very
pretty woman, but she isn't a very bright one."
"That is just where you are mistaken," she returned. "She is extremely
clever but you don't seem to understand how much training and
environment have to do with those things. Take a woman as pretty as
Dita, a woman who has been beautiful and admired from her babyhood--she
has always been the center of attraction, she has never had to observe
people closely, to study their moods and characteristics, never has had
to try to please." There was a depth of mournful experience in Maud's
tone. "Therefore she seems to carry things with a high hand, seems to
lack subtlety and finesse and deference to the opinions of others.
Therefore, you, seeing this, immediately put it down to lack of brains.
It is a stupidity unworthy of you, at least it is a snap-shot judgment,
a lack of that careful, sympathetic study and analysis of character
which I should fancy would be necessary to you as a playwright."
He sat for a moment or two, with hands loosely clasped between his
knees, gazing into the bed of glowing coals. This attitude and silence
on his part continued for some minutes. "There!" he turned around so
suddenly that she jumped, "I've given due and careful consideration to
all you have to say and I will repeat my original statement. Mrs.
Hepworth is a very pretty woman, but she isn't a very bright one, not
bright enough to be ordinarily discreet."
Her shoulders twitched petulantly. "Wallace! The blot on your character
is that you are a bit of a gossip, yes you are, and you mingle with a
lot of idle people who have nothing better to do than to spend time that
might be put to valuable uses in making mountains out of mole hills.
Truly, it's an idiotic mental employment that is not worthy of you."
"Maud, you rouse me to argument; you do, really. I am not talking about
Mrs. Hepworth's very manifestly displayed interest in Gresham last
night. That might be attributed to half a dozen different causes. She
might have had a row with her husband or dressmaker, or have been so
bored by the happy family group gathered about her that she was ready
for anything. Any one could see that she was rather out-of-sorts,
excited and reckless and all that. I am not even thinking of last night,
and I will immediately withdraw any aspersions I may seem to have cast
on Mrs. Hepworth's brain power, if you will tell me why she gave Eugene
Gresham that old trinket, amulet, talisman or whatever it is?"
Maud began to laugh, quite naturally at first, and then she stopped
suddenly. She remembered the scene of the night before, the empty space
in the tray. She remembered Cresswell Hepworth's surprise, and Dita's
sullenness.
"But you heard Dita last night say that it was broken and that it was
being mended," she protested, but some way her protestations sounded
flat and unconvincing in her own ears.
"Yes, and you remember that she glanced quickly at Eugene Gresham before
she answered. You also remember that Hepworth, in the innocence of his
heart, explained that the old legend or tradition which had been
connected with the charm for centuries had been that it could neither be
bought nor sold, but that it could only be given away, given away with
the heart's love of the possessor, and in that case it would prove a
blessing to both him who gave and him who took."
Martin stooped and lifted the Persian cat upon his knees. "Well, my dear
Maud, the end of that story is that Gresham has the amulet."
"If that is true," she flashed back, "he took it to be mended for her."
"The circumstances do not seem to point that way," he said mildly.
"Really, Maud, it's the deuce of a mix-up, and I'm simply trying to
prepare you for the worst. You know those English people, the Nasmyths,
in draggled tweeds and velveteens; the mother wears an India shawl, and
the daughter a hat which looks as if it were made of carpet. Well, they
were at the Hewstons' to luncheon to-day and they had just come from
Eugene Gresham's studio where they had been pottering about the best
part of the morning, although Alice Wilstead said their boots and their
faces looked as if they had been chasing over plowed fields. Well, they
were yelping about Gresham like all other women, and raving about the
beautiful things he had, and Mrs. Nasmyth told how she got to poking
about on a table and found your friend's amulet; and she, of course,
made an awful scream about it, and Gresham, who, she naively remarked,
didn't seem any too pleased at her discovery, explained that it was a
good-luck charm, of very ancient workmanship, which had been given to
him by a dear friend, and then he gently and firmly locked it up before
her eyes in a little cabinet."
"Horrid creature!" murmured Maud.
"Who?" said Wallace eagerly. "You can't possibly mean Gresham, do you,
Maud? What!" his tones expressed a wondering delight as she mutely but
emphatically nodded her head. "To hear a woman speak thus of that hero
of romance! Never has such a grateful sound saluted my ears. Never!
Maud, I am really afraid I am going to hug you."
"You are going to do nothing of the kind." She could not help laughing,
although she was seriously worried.
"Well, we'll waive it for the present," he conceded, again sinking
languidly back in his chair, "but that isn't the worst. I told you that
it was the deuce of a mix-up, and so it is. To continue now on page
eight hundred and ninety-nine, the Nasmyths babbled all this out at
luncheon, and old Hewston got perfectly apoplectic. He swelled up and
became purple and emitted the most dreadful snorts and whiffles, and
grunts and groans, until finally just as his wife and Alice Wilstead
thought he was going to fall down in a fit, he got up and puffed away
from the table, and Alice and Mrs. Hewston rushed after him, leaving the
poor Nasmyths to take care of themselves. And not one thing could those
two women do with him. You know what an obstinate, pig-headed,
meddlesome old thing he is--and his head was set on jumping into his car
and off to tell Hepworth as quickly as possible and, my dear Maud, that
is what he did. Alice Wilstead said that she and Mrs. Hewston hung on to
his coat-tails up to the very moment he entered the car, begging,
praying, beseeching, imploring. She said he dragged them all the way
across the sidewalk and literally kicked himself free from them." Martin
threw back his head in a great burst of laughter in which Maud very
feebly joined.
"I wish I'd been there," she said regretfully. "He'd only have got in
that motor over my dead body; but, Wallace, when did you hear all this?"
"I met Alice Wilstead limping up the avenue, on her way home, and she
told me about it."
"I wish--" began Maud, but she was interrupted by a summons to the
telephone. When she returned to the room a few moments later, her face
was graver than ever.
"I'll have to leave you, Wallace," she said. "You can stay here with the
cat and the fire and the tea-kettle if you want to. Perhaps mother will
come in, but Dita wishes me to come to her at once."