TWO ANNOUNCEMENTS
Dita had barely finished her breakfast the next morning when the message
was brought to her that a lady who refused to give her name but insisted
on seeing her at once upon important business awaited her in the
reception-room.
Dita hesitated a moment, debating whether or not to rebuke the maid, who
must have yielded to the lure of gold so readily to forget her orders,
and send back a peremptory request for the lady's name and her business,
or whether to yield to her natural and feminine curiosity and grant an
interview to this visitor who appeared so desirous of maintaining an
incognito.
This brief hesitation proved a loss, however, to the waiting lady, whose
method of being announced showed that she hoped to take Perdita by
surprise, for Maud Carmine entered at the moment and with some show of
indignation in both voice and expression informed Dita that Mrs.
Wilstead was the person guilty of strategic entrance.
"Such impertinence!" breathed Maud. "Scrawl a note in pencil, Dita, to
the effect that it will be impossible for Mrs. Hepworth to see Mrs.
Wilstead. That will show her that her ruse and her bribes have been
quite unsuccessful."
In her ardor for Mrs. Wilstead's demolition Maud had forgotten that the
last thing Dita could endure was dictation. Now, no sooner had the words
of admonition left her lips than, to her chagrin, she saw Dita's chin
lifted, Dita's nostrils quiver, Dita's shoulders flung back ever so
slightly.
"I think I shall see her." Mrs. Hepworth was on her feet, her voice
cool, firm, pleasant, with just that little warning vibration which
always meant danger. "You may tell Mrs. Wilstead that I will see her
immediately." Her eyes scorched the maid, who hastened to obey, with the
impression of an X-ray having been turned on her immaculate white waist,
and exposing with startling vividness the crisp, green bill hastily
thrust within.
"Come, Maudie," Perdita touched her on the shoulder in passing. "Do not
look so downcast. Why do you wish to deprive me of a little legitimate
amusement?"
Maud, strong now in tardy wisdom, said nothing, and Perdita's light,
quick step might be heard a moment later descending the stairs.
Alice Wilstead turned hastily from her contemplation of the small green
yard without the window.
"My dear Perdita!" She came forward with Dita's note of the day before
in her hand. "I just received this in the morning's mail, and I lost no
time in getting here, I assure you, and making the attempt to see you by
hook or crook. I know it's outrageous of me, but I don't understand, and
I want to understand. Why is it, my dear, that you have refused to take
me? Surely I'm not a hopeless case." She smiled ingratiatingly, and Dita
was bound to admit that never had she appeared more attractive. Her
piquant face was radiant with happiness, the whole effect of her was of
a sort of buoyant joyousness.
Dita's chin was just half an inch higher than when she had left Maud,
her smile was sweet and cold and faint, as remote as if it had been
bestowed upon a passing acquaintance in Mars, and she remained standing.
Mrs. Wilstead's mental recoil was but momentary. Her cause was good, her
motives pure, her courage high. Above everything, she desired the
benefits of Perdita Hepworth's genius. They were on sale, to the high
bidders, and she did not purpose to be excluded merely because it was to
be supposed that she would espouse the cause of her old friend,
Cresswell Hepworth, in the event of open differences between himself and
his wife.
"I regret, Mrs. Wilstead," Dita's voice matched her smile, "that it will
be quite impossible for us to take any one else now. The summer is
almost upon us, you see."
Mrs. Wilstead should not be blamed for not seeing. April, as wind and
sky portended, was about to burst, not into tears, but into a snowstorm.
Alice shivered in her furs.
"Oh, but, my dear child," she begged, "do have some mercy on me. Here am
I getting my trousseau. Oh, no wonder you start. I've always said that
I never, never either would or could do anything so idiotic as to get
married again, and yet here I am not only considering it, but actually
committed to a wedding-day. And that is to be so appallingly soon. I
tried and tried to put it off a little longer, but he is so impatient."
Dita's mouth had frozen, and the haughty and incredulous gaze which she
cast for a brief, indignant moment on Alice would have turned one less
bubblingly gay into a pillar of salt. This interview seemed incredible.
She had always regarded Alice Wilstead as an especially well-bred woman,
but this greed to attain an object at the sacrifice of her self-respect,
even decency of feeling, and regardless of the position in which she
would place the woman with whom she pleaded, was, to Dita, shocking,
insulting, unforgivable. While she waited the fraction of a second to
command her voice, Alice spoke again.
"But you seem angry." She was obviously both hurt and bewildered. "What
have I done? Surely, you will not fail me now at this most crucial
moment of my life. Why, consider, I am going to marry a man five years
younger than myself."
Dita caught at a chair, and sat down, the room seemed to whirl about
her, she pressed her hand to her brow.
"Alice Wilstead," she said, "what on earth do _you_ mean?"
"I mean what I say," returned Alice with a touch of acerbity. "I am
going to be married. What do you mean?"
"But to whom, to whom?" Dita was all impatience.
"To whom? Why, to Hayward Preston, of course. One of your husband's
business associates in the West. Surely you knew that?"
"I wish I had Maud by the throat," muttered Dita irrelevantly.
It was twenty minutes later when Maud put her shocked and disgusted head
within the door.
"Dita," coldly surveying the two enthusiasts before her, who sat
together in jocund amity, "Mrs. Hewston is out here in a state of great
perturbation. Do you wish--"
But she got no further, for Mrs. Hewston, in the superiority of her
greater bulk, pushed Maud into the room before her and now stood, the
picture of pink and white and plump tragedy, on the threshold.
"Oh, Alice, I am glad to find you here," she wailed, advancing further
into the room, while Maud discreetly closed the door, not upon herself,
oh, no, but behind both of them. "You are always such a support." She
sank into the chair Dita pushed toward her. "It's Willoughby, of
course." She drew her handkerchief from her bag and mopped her eyes.
"Perdita Hepworth," she abandoned her spineless attitude and sat
upright, speaking with vehemence. "I am more ashamed of being here than
I can ever make you understand. But Willoughby!" There was resignation
in her uplifted eyes, acidity in the purse of her mouth. "He is the
dearest, most lovable fellow in the world," she looked at her listeners
suspiciously, but meeting no correction, permitted her irritation a
natural outlet, "but he is the most obstinate, stupid mule the Lord ever
made."
"What is it now, dear?" asked Alice sympathetically.
"This, and it's quite enough," returned Mrs. Hewston bitterly.
"Cresswell Hepworth, your husband," accusingly to Dita, "and may Heaven
forgive him, for I never can! dined with us last night and just before
he left, Willoughby got to asking him about his plans and Cresswell was
telling him that he was due in London before long. 'But how much longer
will you be in New York?' asked Willoughby, and Cresswell said, with a
queer little smile, 'I can't quite say. There are a number of things to
be looked after, among others a duel I may have to fight.'"
The women looked at each other in pale horror. Dita herself ghastly,
half rose from her chair.
"I told Willoughby," sobbed Mrs. Hewston, "that it was just one of
Cresswell's jokes. You know that odd, dry humor he sometimes shows,
but," despairingly, "you also know Willoughby. He tore and snorted and
raved and routed all night long. I would rather have had a hippopotamus
in my room. And he excoriated you, Perdita. Called her the most dreadful
names, really," this to Alice and Maud, confidentially and quite as if
Dita were not present. "He said that Cresswell's life was ruined
because of the caprices of an ungodly, wanton girl. Yes, Dita, I don't
blame you for being angry, but it was worse than that, too. You see,
he's got the idea firmly into his head that Cresswell is going to fight
a duel with Eugene Gresham and--"
"For goodness sake, let us keep our common sense," said Mrs. Wilstead,
laying a detaining hand on Dita's shoulder, noting that Mrs. Hepworth's
eyes were turned longingly toward the telephone. "You know perfectly
well, Isabel, you know, Maud, and you, also, Dita, that Cresswell
Hepworth does not for one moment contemplate anything so crazy. Nothing
could induce him to put either himself or you, Dita, into such a
position. Such a thing would be entirely against his nature. He would
regard it as farcical melodrama, turn from it even in thought with
infinite contempt and scorn. The idea of Willoughby thinking such a
thing. Just like him. Meddlesome idiot. Ah, I don't care, Isabel, you
know he is one. I wish I had him here now."
"He's out there in the motor," wept his wife. "He was afraid I wouldn't
come and tell Perdita unless he came with me. But, Alice, you shan't
speak of him so, he's the best--"
"He's still there," interrupted Maud, who had gone to peer from the
window at Mrs. Hewston's announcement that this watch-dog of Dita's
morals waited without, "with his head out of the window looking up at
the house. And, oh, Heavens!" falling back against the lintel, "here is
Eugene Gresham coming up the steps, and Mr. Hewston is glaring at him
until his eyes are standing out of his head. He is purple in the face.
Now he is speaking to the chauffeur. Why, they are off, gone like the
wind."
Mrs. Hewston fell back limply in her chair. She seemed incapable of
speech for a moment. "Alice," she said at last, in awe-stricken tones,
"he has gone to tell Cress that Eugene Gresham is here."
"Well, what of it?" snapped Mrs. Wilstead. "Cresswell will only laugh at
him and smooth him down. You know that."
"I hope so," breathed Mrs. Hewston. "He seems to amuse Cresswell. Fancy.
But then," more understandingly, "he doesn't have to live with him."