For one instant Lynn stood against the closed door, flaming with anger,
her eyes flashing fire as they well knew how to flash at times. Then
suddenly her lips set close in a fine control the fire died out of her
eyes, she drew a deep breath, and a quick whimsical smile lighted up her
face, which nevertheless did not look in the least like one subdued:
“You know I could get very angry at that if I chose and we'd have
all kinds of a disagreeable time, but I think it would be a little
pleasanter for us both if you would cut that out, don't you?” She said
it in a cool little voice that sounded like one in entire command of the
situation, and Opal turned around and stared at her admiringly. Then
she laughed one of her wild silvery laughs that made them say she had a
lute-like voice, and sauntered over toward her hostess:
“You certainly are a queer girl!” she commented, “I suppose it would be
better to be friends, inasmuch as we're to be roommates. Will you smoke
with me?” and out from the depths of a beaded affair that was a part of
her frock and yet looked more like a bag than a pocket, she drew forth a
gold cigarette case and held it out.
Marilyn controlled the growing contempt in her face and answered with
spirit:
“No, I don't smoke. And you won't smoke either--_not in here!_ I'm sorry
to seem inhospitable, but we don't do things like that around here, and
if you have to smoke you'll have to go out doors.”
“Oh, really?” Opal arched her already permanently arched, plucked brows
and laughed again. “Well, you certainly have lots of pep. I believe I'm
going to like you. Let's sit down and you tell me about yourself?”
“Why don't _you_ tell me about _yourself_?” hedged Marilyn relaxing into
a chair and leaving the deep leather one for her guest, “I'm really a
very simple affair, just a country girl very glad to get home after four
years at college. There's nothing complex and nothing to tell I assure
you.”
“You're entirely too sophisticated for all that simplicity,” declared
Opal, “I suppose it's college that has given you so much poise. But why
aren't you impressed with Laurie? Simply _everybody_ is impressed with
Laurie! I don't believe you even know who he is!”
Lynn laughed:
“How should I? And what difference would it make any way? As for being
impressed, he gave me the impression of a very badly spoiled boy out
trying to have his own way, and making a great fuss because he couldn't
get it.”
“And you didn't know that his father is William J. Shafton, the
multi-millionaire?” Opal brought the words out like little sharp points
that seemed to glitter affluently as she spoke them.
“No,” said Marilyn, “I didn't know. But it doesn't matter. We hadn't
anything better to offer him than we've given, and I don't know why I
should have been impressed by that. A man is what he is, isn't he? Not
what his father is. He isn't your--_brother_--is he? I was over at the
church when you arrived and didn't hear the introductions. I didn't even
get your name.”
Opal laughed uproariously as if the subject were overwhelmingly amusing:
“No,” she said recovering, “I'm just Opal. Fire Opal they call me
sometimes, and Opalescence. That's Laurie's name for me, although lately
he's taken to calling me Effervescence. No, he's not my brother little
Simple Lady, he's just one of my friends. Now don't look shocked. I'm
a naughty married lady run off on a spree for a little fun.” Marilyn
regarded her thoughtfully:
“Now stop looking at me with those solemn eyes! Tell me what you were
thinking about me! I'd lots rather hear it. It would be something
original, I'm sure. You're nothing if not original!”
“I was just wondering why,” said Marilyn still thoughtfully.
“Why what?”
“_Why._ Why you did it. Why you wanted to be that kind of a married
woman when the real kind is so much more beautiful and satisfactory.”
“What do you know about it?” blazed Opal, “You've never been married,
have you?”
“My mother has had such a wonderful life with my father--and my father
with my mother!”
Opal stared at her amazed for an instant, then shrugged her shoulders
lightly:
“Oh, _that!_” she said and laughed disagreeably, “If one wants to be a
saint, perhaps, but there aren't many _men_-saints I can tell you! You
haven't seen my husband or you wouldn't talk like that! Imagine living a
saintly life with Ed Verrons! But my dear, wait till you're married! You
won't talk that rubbish any more!”
“I shall never marry unless I can,” said Lynn decidedly, “It would be
terrible to marry some one I could not love and trust!”
“Oh, love!” said Opal contemptuously, “You can love any one you want
to for a little while. Love doesn't last. It's just a play you soon get
tired to death of. But if that's the way you feel don't pin your trust
and your love as you call it to that princely icicle we saw down on the
lawn. He's seen more of the world than you know. I saw it in his eyes.
There! Now don't set your eyes to blazing again. I won't mention him any
more to-night. And don't worry about me, I'm going to be good and run
back to-morrow morning in time to meet my dear old hubby in the evening
when he gets back from a week's fishing in the Adirondacks, and he'll
never guess what a frolic I've had. But you certainly do amuse me with
your indifference. Wait till Laurie gets in some of his work on you. I
can see he's crazy already about you, and if I don't decide to carry him
off with me in the morning I'll miss my guess if he doesn't show you
how altogether charming the son of William J. Shafton can be. He never
failed to have a girl fall for him yet, not one that he _went_ after,
and he's been after a good many girls I can tell you.”
Lynn arose suddenly, her chin a bit high, a light of determination in
her eyes. She felt herself growing angry again:
“Come and look at my view of the moon on the valley,” she said
suddenly, pulling aside the soft scrim curtain and letting in a flood of
moonlight. “Here, I'll turn out the light so you can see better. Isn't
that beautiful?”
She switched off the lights and the stranger drew near apathetically,
gazing out into the beauty of the moonlight as it touched the houses
half hidden in the trees and vines, and flooded the Valley stretching
far away to the feet of the tall dark mountains.
“I hate mountains!” shuddered Opal, “They make me afraid! I almost ran
over a precipice when I was coming here yesterday. If I have to go back
that same way I shall take Laurie, or if he won't go I'll cajole that
stunning prince of yours if you don't mind. I loathe being alone. That's
why I ran down here to see Laurie!”
But Lynn had switched on the lights and turned from the window. Her face
was cold and her voice hard:
“Suppose we go to bed,” she said, “will you have the bed next the window
or the door? And what shall I get for you? Have you everything? See,
here is the bathroom. Father and mother had it built for me for my
birthday. And the furniture is some of mother's grandmother's. They had
it done over for me.”
“It's really a dandy room!” said Opal admiringly, “I hadn't expected
to find anything like this,” she added without seeming to know she was
patronizing. “You are the only child, aren't you? Your father and mother
just dote on you too. That must be nice. We had a whole houseful at
home, three girls and two boys, and after father lost his money and had
to go to a sanitarium we had frightful times, never any money to buy
anything, the girls always fighting over who should have silk stockings,
and mother crying every night when we learned to smoke. Of course mother
was old fashioned. I hated to have her weeping around all the time, but
all our set smoked and what could I do? So I just took the first good
chance to get married and got out of it all. And Ed isn't so bad. Lots
of men are worse. And he gives me all the money I want. One thing the
girls don't have to fight over silk stockings and silk petticoats any
more. I send them all they want. And I manage to get my good times
in now and then too. But tell me, what in the world do you do in this
sleepy little town? Don't you get bored to death? I should think you'd
get your father to move to the city. There must be plenty of churches
where a good looking minister like your father could get a much bigger
salary than out in the country like this. When I get back to New York
I'll send for you to visit me and show you a real good time. I suppose
you've never been to cabarets and eaten theatre suppers, and seen a real
New York good time. Why, last winter I had an affair that was talked of
in the papers for days. I had the whole lower floor decorated as a wood
you know, with real trees set up, and mossy banks, and a brook running
through it all. It took days for the plumbers to get the fittings in,
and then they put stones in the bottom, and gold fish, and planted
violets on the banks and all kinds of ferns and lilies of the valley,
everywhere there were flowers blossoming so the guests could pick as
many as they wanted. The stream was deep enough to float little canoes,
and they stopped in grottoes for champagne, and when they came to a
shallow place they had to get out and take off their shoes and stockings
and wade in the brook. On the opposite bank a maid was waiting with
towels. The ladies sat down on the bank and their escorts had to wipe
their feet and help them on with their shoes and stockings again, and
you ought to have heard the shouts of laughter! It certainly was a great
time! Upstairs in the ball room we had garden walks all about, with all
kinds of flowers growing, and real birds flying around, and the walls
were simply covered with American beauty roses and wonderful climbers,
in such bowers that the air was heavy with perfume. The flowers alone
cost thousands--What's the matter? Did you hear something fall? You
startled me, jumping up like that! You're nervous aren't you? Don't you
think music makes people nervous?”
Marilyn smiled pathetically, and dropped back to the edge of her bed:
“Pardon me,” she said, “I was just in one of my tempers again. I get
them a lot but I'm trying to control them. I happened to think of the
little babies I saw in the tenement districts when I was in New York
last. Did you ever go there? They wear one little garment, and totter
around in the cold street trying to play, with no stockings, and shoes
out at the toes. Sometimes they haven't enough to eat, and their mothers
are so wretchedly poor and sorrowful--!”
“Mercy!” shuddered Opal, “How morbid you are! What ever did you go to a
place like that for? I always keep as far away from unpleasant things as
I can. I cross the street if I see a blind beggar ahead. I just loathe
misery! But however did you happen to think of them when I was telling
you about my beautiful ball room decorations?”
Lynn twinkled:
“I guess you wouldn't understand me,” she said slowly, “but I was
thinking of all the good those thousands of dollars would have done if
they had been spent on babies and not on flowers.”
“Gracious!” said Opal. “I _hate_ babies! Ed is crazy about them, and
would like to have the house full, but I gave him to understand what I
thought about that before we were married.”
“I _love_ babies,” said Marilyn. “They want me to go this Fall and do
some work in that settlement, and I'm considering it. If it only weren't
for leaving father and mother again--but I do love the babies and the
little children. I want to gather them all and do so many things for
them. You know they are all God's babies, and it seems pitiful for them
to have to be in such a dreadful world as some of them have!”
“Oh, _God_!” shuddered Opal quite openly now, “Don't talk about God!
I _hate_ God! He's just killed one of my best men friends! I wish you
wouldn't talk about God!”
Marilyn looked at her sadly, contemplatively, and then twitched her
mouth into a little smile:
“We're not getting on very well, are we? I don't like your costly
entertainments, and you don't like my best Friend! I'm sorry. I must
seem a little prude to you I'm afraid, but really, God is not what you
think. You wouldn't hate Him, you would love Him,--if you _knew_ Him.”
“Fancy knowing God--as you would your other friends! How _dreadful_!
Let's go to bed!”
Opal began to get out her lovely brushes and toilet paraphernalia and
Lynn let down her wonderful golden mane and began to brush it, looking
exquisite in a little blue dimity kimona delicately edged with'
valenciennes. Opal made herself radiant in a rose-chiffon and old-point
negligee and went through numerous gyrations relating to the complexion,
complaining meanwhile of the lack of a maid.
But after the lights were out, and Lynn kneeling silently by her bed in
the moonlight, Opal lay on the other bed and watched her wonderingly,
and when a few minutes later, Marilyn rose softly and crept into bed as
quietly as possible lest she disturb her guest, Opal spoke:
“I wonder what you would do if a man--the man you liked best in all the
world,--had got killed doing something to please you. It makes you go
_crazy_ when you think of it--someone you've danced with lying dead that
way all alone. I wonder what _you'd do_!”
Lynn brought her mind back from her own sorrows and prayers with a jerk
to the problem of this strange guest. She did not answer for a moment,
then she said very slowly:
“I think--I don't know--but I _think_ I should go right to God and ask
Him what to do. I think nobody else could show what ought to be done.
There wouldn't be anything else to do!”
“Oh, _murder_!” said Opal turning over in bed quickly, and hiding her
face in the pillow, and there was in the end of her breath just the
suggestion of a shriek of fear.
But far, far into the night Marilyn lay on her sleepless pillow, her
heart crying out to God: “Oh, save Mark! Take care of Mark! Show him the
way back again!”
Afar in the great city a message stole on a wire through the night, and
presently the great presses were hot with its import, printing thousands
and thousands of extras for early morning consumption, with headlines in
enormous letters across the front page:
“LAURENCE SHAFTON, SON OF WILLIAM J. SHAFTON, KIDNAPPED!”
“Mrs. Shafton is lying in nervous collapse as the result of threats from
kidnappers who boldly called her up on the phone and demanded a king's
ransom, threatening death to the son if the plot was revealed before ten
o'clock this morning. The faithful mother gathered her treasures which
included the famous Shafton Emeralds, and a string of pearls worth a
hundred thousand dollars, and let them down from her window as directed,
and then fainted, knowing nothing more till her maid hearing her fall,
rushed into the room and found her unconscious. When roused she became
hysterical and told what had happened. Then remembering the threat of
death for telling ahead of time she became crazy with grief, and it was
almost impossible to soothe her. The maid called her family physician,
explaining all she knew, and the matter was at once put into the hands
of capable detectives who are doing all they know how to locate the
missing son, who has been gone only since Saturday evening; and also to
find the missing jewels and other property, and it is hoped that before
evening the young man will be found.”
Meantime, Laurence Shafton slept soundly and late in the minister's
study, and knew nothing of the turmoil and sorrow of his doting family.