"I thought it was just what you wanted," answered Griggs reproachfully.
"Nothing queerer than that," said Wood, and went on: "Six-month dietary
expert--one year training--appearance, pleasing." He glanced at his
secretary. It amused him to think of the discreet Griggs appraising the
appearance of these young women. "What system did you mark them on,
Griggs?" he asked, but got no further, for the door opened and Miss
Exeter entered, and Griggs, with his unfailing discretion, left.
Wood looked at her and saw that Griggs as usual had been exactly
right--she was neither more nor less than pleasing--a small, slim, pale
girl, whose unremarkable brown eyes radiated a steady intelligence.
Wood had employed labor in many parts of the world, from Chile to
China, and he had a routine about it--a preliminary intelligence test,
which he applied.
"Sit down, Miss Exeter," he said. "I think it will save us both time if
you will tell me all that you know about this position"--this was the
test--"and then I'll fill in."
Augusta sat down. She found herself a trifle nervous. This man
impressed her, for since her childhood she had cherished a secret
romantic admiration for men who exercised any form of power--kings and
generals and men of great affairs. It was a feeling that had nothing to
do with real life and represented no disloyalty to her fiancé, Horace
Bayne, who exercised no power of any kind.
One reason why it had had no relation to life was that she had not met
any men of this type. Even in the outer office she had been impressed
by the sense of a man waited on and protected by secretaries and
office boys as an Eastern princess is waited upon by slaves. And now
when she saw him she saw that he had exactly the type of looks she
admired most--tall, a little too thin, his face tanned to that shade of
_café au lait_ that the blond Anglo-Saxon acquires under the sun--those
piercing bright-blue eyes--that large handsome hand, which, with the
thumb in his waistcoat pocket, was so clearly outlined against the blue
serge of his clothes.
She said rather uncertainly, "I know that Mrs. Conway is a widow with
three children----"
Even this much was wrong.
"Not, a widow," he said; "divorced."
"----with three children," Augusta went on; "a girl of seventeen, a boy
of fifteen and a little girl of eleven. I know that during your absence
you want someone to take the care and responsibility of the children
off your sister's shoulders."
He smiled--his teeth seemed to have the extraordinary whiteness that is
the compensation of a dark skin.
"I see," he said, "that Griggs has been discreet again." He glanced
at his watch. "I'm going to Mexico in a few hours, Miss Exeter. I
have just twenty-five minutes. If in that time I am not thoroughly
indiscreet I can't look to you for any help. The situation is this:
My sister married Gordon Conway when she was very young--eighteen; he
turned out to be a gambler. I don't know whether you've ever known any
gamblers"--Miss Exeter never had--"but they are a peculiar breed--the
real ones--charming--friendly--gay--open-handed when they are winning;
they become the most inhuman devils in the world when they are losing.
Never get tied up to a gambler. During my poor sister's romance and
marriage Conway was winning--large sums--on the races. But that stopped
a month or so after their marriage, and ever since then, as far as I
know, he has lost--in stocks, at Monte Carlo, and finally at every
little gambling casino in Europe. After about six years of it we
managed to get her a divorce. She has entire control of the children,
of course. Conway has sunk out of sight. Oh, once in a while he turns
up and tries to get a little money from her, but fortunately what
little she inherited from my father came to her after her divorce,
or otherwise he'd have managed to get it away from her. She's very
generous--weak--whichever you call it. One of the things I'm going
to ask you to do is to prevent her seeing him at all, and certainly
prevent her letting him have any money. Though it isn't likely to
happen. I believe he's abroad.
"The great point is the children. I'm sorry to say that it seems to
me my sister is ruining three naturally fine children as rapidly as a
devoted mother can. Of course, many parents are over indulgent, but my
sister not only indulges her children but gives them at the same time
the conviction that they are such interesting and special types that
none of the ordinary rules apply to them. The elder girl, Dorothy, is
a pretty, commonplace American girl--no fault to find with her except
that her mother treats her as if she were an empress. If, for instance,
her mother keeps her waiting five minutes she behaves as if she were
an exiled queen faced by treachery among her dependents--won't speak
to her mother perhaps for a day. And if I say--which I oughtn't to do,
for it's no use--'Isn't Dorothy a trifle insolent?' my sister answers,
'I'm so delighted to see that she isn't growing up with the inferiority
complex that I had as a girl.' The boy is a perfectly straight manly
boy, but he smokes constantly--at fifteen--and when I criticize him my
sister says before him, 'Well, Anthony, you know you smoke yourself. I
can't very well tell Durland it's a crime. Besides, I have the theory
that if he smokes enough now he'll be tired of it by the time he grows
up.'"
"But that isn't sound," said Miss Exeter, quite shocked at the sketch
she was hearing. "Habits formed in youth----"
"Of course it isn't sound," said Wood. "And as a matter of fact, my
sister never thought of it until I objected. She evolves these theories
merely for the sake of protecting her children. Oddly enough, she not
only doesn't want to change them herself but she doesn't want any one
else to change them. Three years ago I engaged in a life-and-death
struggle with her to get Durland--the boy--to boarding school. She
advanced the following arguments against it: First, that he was a
perfectly normal, manly boy and did not need to go; second, that he was
of a peculiar, artistic, sensitive temperament and would be wrecked
by being made to conform to boarding-school standards; third, that
none of the successful men of the country had gone to boarding school;
fourth, that success was the last thing she desired for any son of
hers; fifth, that she did not wish to remove him from the benefits of
my daily influence; and sixth, that I was a person of no judgment and
absolutely wrong about its being wise for a boy to go to school."
"And is he at school?" Miss Exeter inquired politely.
"Oh, yes," answered Wood, without seeing anything amusing in her
question. "Although my sister does a good deal to counteract the
effect--by making fun of the teachers and the rules, and always
bringing him, when she goes to visit him, whatever is specially
forbidden, like candy and cigarettes and extra pocket money. You see,
that's where it's going to be hard for you. She not only doesn't want
to discipline them herself but she's against any person or institution
that tries to do it for her. As soon as you begin to accomplish
anything with the children--as I'm sure you will do--she'll be against
you; she'll want you to go."
"That makes it pretty hopeless, doesn't it?" said Miss Exeter.
He shook his head briskly.
"No," he said; "for I have made her promise that she won't send you
away, no matter what happens, until I get back. I know what was in her
mind when she gave the promise--that she could make it so unpleasant
for you that you'd go of your own accord. So, Miss Exeter, I want you
to promise me that you won't go, no matter how disagreeable she makes
it----"
"Oh, Mr. Wood, I couldn't do that," said Augusta.
"There's no use in going at all otherwise," he said. "Oh, come, be a
sport! I'll make it worth while. I'll give you a bonus of five hundred
dollars if you're still on the job when I get back--or I'll bring you
a turquoise--I'm going down to inspect the best mine in the world. You
see, I feel this means the whole future of those children--to be with a
woman like you. I know you could do with them just what I want done."
"You may be mistaken about that, Mr. Wood."
"I may be, but I'm not."
The blue eyes fixed themselves on her. She said to herself that it was
the five hundred dollars--so desirable for a trousseau--that turned the
scale, but the blue eyes and the compliment had something to do with
her decision.
"It seems a reckless thing to promise," she murmured with a weak laugh.
"No, not at all. I wouldn't let you do anything reckless." He spoke
as a kindly grandfather might speak. "And now we have ten minutes
left, and I want to talk to you about the little one--Antonia." His
face softened, and after a slight struggle he yielded to a smile. "The
truth is," he said, "that she's much my favorite. She's intelligent
and honest, and the justest person of any age or sex that I ever knew
in my life." He paused a second. "Perhaps it is because I'm fonder of
her than of the other two, but it seems to me my sister is particularly
unwise about Antonia."
His mind went back to his parting the evening before with this small
niece. He and his sister had been sitting on the piazza of the house
they had taken at Southampton--at least she had taken it and he had
paid for it. Only a few yards away the Atlantic, in one of its placid
lakelike moods, was hissing slowly up and down on the sand. The
struggle about a governess had been going on for several weeks. So far
Mrs. Conway had won, for this was his last evening and none had been
engaged. She had a wonderful method for dealing with her brother--a
method to be commended to all weak people trying to get the maximum of
interest and the minimum of control from stronger natures. She listened
to everything he said as if she were wholly convinced by his words and
intended to follow his advice to the last detail, and then she went
away and did just what she had always meant to do. If he reproached her
she looked at him wonderingly and said: "But, Anthony dear, I did agree
with you at the time; but afterward, when I came to think----" Oh, how
well he knew that dread phrase, "afterward, when I came to think!"
By these methods she had managed to fend off action for three weeks,
agreeing with him most cordially that the children ought to have a
governess, but thinking, after he had gone to New York for the week,
that it would be nice for them to take French lessons with that
charming French lady in the village, or that perhaps the Abernathys'
governess would come over for an hour a day----
And now on his last evening he had outmaneuvered her by announcing that
he was interviewing candidates the next morning before he took his
train, and would send her the best.
"I'm sure it's very kind of you to take all this trouble, Tony," she
said. "Don't send me anyone too hideous, will you?"
"Griggs describes the young woman I have in mind as of pleasing
appearance."
"That means perfectly hideous."
"You wouldn't want a prize beauty, would you?"
"Certainly I would. I like to have lovely things about me. I suppose
you think that's idiotic."
He assured her that he never thought her idiotic--at least not
unintentionally--and went on to obtain the famous pledge--the promise
that she would keep the governess he sent her until his return in
September. She agreed finally, partly because it was getting late and
she was sleepy, partly because she reflected that there were more ways
of getting rid of governesses than by sending them away.
"I'm so sleepy," she said, yawning, "and yet I don't quite like to go
to bed until Antonia comes in."
"Antonia?" said Wood. "I thought she went to bed at nine."
It appeared that Antonia had formed the habit lately of sleeping on the
beach--at least for the earlier part of the night--just digging a hole
and curling up there. Her mother thought it an interesting, primitive,
healthy sort of instinct.
"And yet," she added thoughtfully, as if she knew she were a little
finicky, "I don't like to lock up the house until she comes in."
"I think you're right," said her brother. These were the things that
terrified him so--a little girl out in the blackness of that beach in
her pajamas. How could he go to Mexico and leave her? He rose and went
to the edge of the piazza, which rested on the dunes.
He could see nothing but the stars.
"Shall I call her?" he said.
"I hate to wake her; but--yes, just give a call."
He shouted, and in a few seconds a faint, cheerful hullo reached them,
and a little figure appeared over the dunes.
"Were you asleep, darling?" said her mother.
"No, I was swimming," said Antonia. She stepped within the circle of
light from the windows, and Wood could see that her dark curly hair was
plastered to her head, and her pajamas clung to her like tissue paper.
"I love to swim at night," she said. "It makes you feel like a spirit."
She shared her more important thoughts with her uncle. Then, turning
to her mother, she advanced toward her with outstretched arms as if to
clasp her in a wet embrace.
"Look out for your mother's dress," said Wood, for Edna Conway was as
usual perfectly dressed in white. She smiled at him and took the child
to her breast.
"Dear Anthony," she said, "if you were married you'd know that a woman
loves her children better than her clothes."
He was silent, wondering if she knew how much she had had to do with
the fact that he wasn't married. He had no taste for masculine women,
and yet Edna had made him distrustful of all femininity which sooner or
later developed the sweet obstinacy, the clinging pig-headedness, the
subtle ability, under the idiotic coyness of a kitten, to get its own
way. Well off and physically attractive, he had not been neglected by
women, but always sooner or later it had seemed to him that he had seen
the dread shadow of kittenishness. Cattishness he could have borne, but
the kitten in woman disgusted him.
"And, dearest," his sister was saying to her daughter, "you won't go to
bed in your wet things, will you?"
Antonia shook her finger at her mother.
"Now don't begin to be fussy," she said, not impudently, but as one
equal gives advice to another. Yet even this mild suggestion of reproof
was painful to Edna.
She turned to her brother and said passionately, "I'm not fussy, am I?
I don't see how you can say that, Antonia. It's only that your uncle
wouldn't close an eye if he thought you were sleeping in damp pajamas;
would you, Anthony?" And she laughed gayly.
This was one of her most irritating ways--to pretend that she was just
a wild thing like the children, but that to oblige some stuffy older
person she was forced to ask the children to conform.
"I might close an eye, at that," said Anthony.
The whole incident had finally decided him to take the prospective
governess entirely into his confidence. He had thought at first it
would be more honorable to let her discover the situation for herself,
but now he saw that she would need not only all his knowledge of the
situation but the full conviction that he was backing her, whatever she
did. He became convinced of this even before he saw Miss Exeter. Having
seen her, he had no further hesitation. He thought her as sensible a
person as he had ever met. She sat there in the hard north light of
his office, noting down now and then a few words in a little black
notebook. She was not only sensible--she was to be depended on.
"The truth is," he said, "that Antonia, not to put too fine a point on
it, is not personally clean."
Miss Exeter smiled, for to her mind the tone of agony in his voice was
exaggerated.
"But at a certain age no children are," she said.
"But most children are forced to be, and my sister lets this child run
wild, so that people talk about it. I suppose I oughtn't to mind so
much," he said, looking at her rather wistfully; "but you can't imagine
how I hate to think that people discuss Antonia's being dirty. And all
my sister says is that she's so glad the child isn't vain. Oh, Miss
Exeter, if you could get Antonia dressed like a nice, well brought up
little girl I think I'd do anything in the world for you."
She promised that too. In fact, by the time she finally left the
office and was on her way uptown, late for an engagement she had with
Horace Bayne, she was alarmed to remember how many things she had
promised--not only to stay until he came back but to write to him every
day, a long report of just what had happened in the family and what her
impressions of it were.
"Not letters," he had said, "because I shan't answer them; but
reports--reports on my family, as I am going to make a report on this
mine."
They were to be typewritten. He had no intention of struggling with any
woman's handwriting, though Augusta murmured that hers was considered
very legible.
It was not her custom to take a definite step like this without
consulting Horace--not so much because Horace insisted on it as because
she thought highly of his opinion. She was astonished now, as in the
Subway she thought over the interview, to find how little she had been
thinking of Horace. They had been engaged for something over two
years, one of those comfortable engagements, which until recently had
had no prospects of marriage.
The Rutland College Club is almost deserted in summer. As she ran
upstairs to the library, where she was to meet Horace, she glanced at
her watch and saw to her regret that he must have been waiting almost
an hour, for he was punctual, and usually arrived a little ahead of
the hour. She was sorry--such a busy man; but he would understand--she
would explain----
He rose from a deep chair as she entered--a serious young man whom
everyone trusted at first sight. She saw he looked a little more
serious than usual, and her sense of guilt made her attribute this
seriousness to her own fault. She began to explain quickly and with
unaccustomed vivacity. She sketched the interview--Mr. Wood--his
office--the promise--the letters--the turquoise. Horace kept getting
more and more solemn, although it seemed to her that she made a very
good story of it--more amusing perhaps than the reality had been.
"Isn't it exciting?" she said. "I'm going down on Thursday, under this
contract, to stay two months."
"No, you're not," said Horace.
She stared at him. He had never spoken like that in all the years she
had known him.
"What do you mean, dear?" she said rather reprovingly.
"You were so busy telling me about this Adonis you're going to work
for you did not stop to consider that I might have some news of my
own. I've landed that job in Canada, and I'm going there on Friday and
you're going with me. You're going to marry me the day after tomorrow
and start north on Friday."
She stared at him, many emotions succeeding each other on her face.
She had given her word--her most solemn word. She could hear Wood's
quiet voice asserting his confidence in her. "I know I can depend on
you; if you give me your word I know you'll keep it." She could not
break it. She said this, expecting that Horace would admire her for her
dependability--would at least agree with her that she was doing right.
But instead he looked at her with a smoldering expression, and when she
had finished he broke out. In fact he made her a scene of jealousy--the
first he had ever made--but none the worse for that. For a beginner
Horace showed a good deal of talent. He accused her openly of having
fallen in love with this fellow; she wasn't a girl to do anything as
silly as that except under a hypnotic influence. People did fall in
love at first sight. There were Romeo and Juliet; Shakespeare was a
fairly wise guy--these letters every day--why, if she wrote to him,
Horace, once a week he was lucky--but every day to this man. And jewels
and money--no, not much!
Jealousy, which is popularly supposed to be an erratic and fantastic
emotion, is often founded on the soundest intuition. Augusta found
herself hampered in defending herself by a certain inner doubt; and
her silence enabled Horace to work himself up to such a pitch that he
issued an ultimatum--a dangerous thing to do. She would either marry
him and go to Canada with him, or else everything was over between them.
It was a terrible situation for Augusta. On the one hand, her spoken
word, given to a person whose good opinion she greatly desired, and on
the other, her sincere love of Horace, increased by the decisive stand
he was taking; for it is unfortunately true that if you do not hate a
person for making a scene you love him more.
Perhaps Horace saw this. In any case, he would not retreat an inch.
This was the situation when the door of the library opened and in came
Augusta's friend and classmate, Pearl Leavitt, with whom she had an
engagement for luncheon--only in the general strain and excitement of
the morning she had entirely forgotten the fact.
Pearl, like Augusta herself, was too much occupied with her own mood to
notice that a mood was already waiting for her. It seemed to her that
Augusta and Horace were just sitting there as usual, without much to
say to each other. She had been looking for a job all the morning, and
all the day before, and was discovering that beauty may find it as hard
to get a job as it had been to keep one.
"Hullo, Gussie! Hullo, Horrie!" she said, striding in, full of her own
troubles. "I think men are just terrible."
"You must have changed a lot," said Bayne, who was in no humor to let
anything pass.
He had known Pearl since her freshman year at Rutland, and was
accustomed to seeing her surrounded by a flock of the condemned sex,
whose attentions had never seemed unwelcome.
"Yes, I've changed," said Pearl. "You see, I've worked for men--at
least I've tried to. I've been trying to all morning. If they kept
turning you down because you were lame or marked with smallpox they'd
feel ashamed, but if they turn you down because they think you're
good-looking----" Miss Leavitt here interrupted her narrative to give a
grinning representation of the speaker. "'Forgive my speaking plainly,
but you are too good-looking for office work.' Doesn't it occur to
them that even good-looking people must eat? And they are so smug
and pleased with themselves. Well, here I am with two weeks' salary
between me and starvation--all on account of my looks. I believe I'll
go and teach in a convent, where there are not any men to be rendered
hysterical by my appearance."
And she gave a terrible glance at Horace, and then feeling she had been
too severe she beamed at him--beaming at Horace was perfectly safe--and
added, "I've always liked you, Horrie; but I have no use for your
sex--especially as employers; they are too emotional."
"And what would you say, Pearl," said Horace in a deadly impartial
tone, "if a man offered you a job, and in the first interview told his
life's story, asked you to write to him every day and promised you
jewels if you stayed on the job until he got back--what would you say?"
"I wouldn't say a word," answered Pearl. "I'd take to the tall timber.
I know that kind."
"You are both absolutely ridiculous," said Augusta haughtily.
"You are absolutely right," said Horace.
"You don't mean to say that someone has been trying to wangle Augusta
away from you, Horace?" asked Pearl, generously abandoning all interest
in her own problems for the moment.
The two others said no and yes simultaneously, and began to pour out
the story. Augusta's point was that Horace did not respect her business
honor or else he would not ask her to break--Horace's point was that
Augusta did not really love him or she wouldn't think up all these
excuses--she'd marry him as he asked her to do. Ah, but he hadn't had
any idea of getting married until he heard that she was going to take
this place! He had--he had--he had come there to tell her, only she had
been so excited about this other man---- Nonsense, the trouble with
Horace was that he was jealous. No, he was not at all jealous, but if
he were he had good reason to be--writing to a man every day, and
accepting jewels----
Pearl kept looking from one to the other, deeply interested. In the
first pause--which did not come for a long time--she said gravely, "How
is it, Gussie? Do you really want to marry Horace?"
She said it very nicely, but on her expressive face was written the
thought that she herself could not see how anyone could want to marry
him.
"I do, I do," answered Augusta rather tearfully; "but how can I when
I've given my word?"
"I'll tell you how you can," said Pearl. "You marry him and disappear
into the wilds of Canada, and I'll take your place with the Conway
family."
They stared at each other like people waiting for the sound of an
explosion. They were trying to think of obstacles.
"Except," said Pearl, "that I'm not efficient like you, and not very
good at mathematics."
"You were efficient in the way you ran the junior ball," said Augusta.
"Everyone said----"
A spasm of amusement crossed Pearl's face.
"Did I never tell you about that?" she said. "I vamped the senior at
Amherst who had run theirs, and he not only gave me all the dope but
he did most of my work. I was a mine of information. But that isn't
efficiency."
"I disagree with you," said Augusta.
The more she thought of this idea, the more it seemed to her perfect.
There had always been a kind of magic about Pearl, and wasn't magic
the highest form of human efficiency? It was not breaking one's word
to substitute a better article than that contracted for. To send Pearl
in her place would be keeping her word doubly. She saw Pearl charming
Antonia, dazzling the boy, setting all the Conway household to rights
by ways peculiarly her own.
"But perhaps they won't want Pearl," said Horace. "I mean----"
"They won't have any choice," said the two girls together.
"But I mean," reiterated Horace, "that no one would want a governess
who looked like Pearl."
Then the storm broke over his head. What? Wouldn't he even let her be a
governess? Did he want her just to starve? Would he tell her what she
could do? Starve perhaps--just starve--all men were alike. Again Pearl
began to stride up and down the room, flicking the front of her small
black hat with her forefinger until finally it fell off and rolled
on the floor like an old-fashioned cannon ball. If Horace had spoken
from motives of diplomacy he could not have done better for himself.
His objection made the two girls a unit for the plan. It just showed,
Pearl explained, that if Horace, who had known her all these years,
really considered her looks an obstacle to her taking a place even as
a governess, why, it was hopeless to suppose that she could ever get
another job.
At length they sent him away--he had a business engagement of his own
for lunch--and they settled down quietly to discuss the details of the
plan over one of the small bare gray wood tables of the club's dining
room. Ordinarily they would have spent most of their time complaining
about the club luncheon, which consisted largely of loose leaves of
lettuce and dabs of various kinds of sauces; but now they were so
interested that they were hardly conscious of what they put into their
mouths.
Of course, Pearl would be obliged to go in the character of Miss
Exeter. Mr. Wood would undoubtedly have given some description of the
governess' personal appearance when he telephoned his sister, as he
had said he meant to do. But Augusta was not alarmed by this idea. Men
were so queer about women's looks that Mrs. Conway would say, "Isn't
that like a man, not even to know a great beauty when he sees one?" As
to the daily letter, how fortunate that he had insisted it should be
typewritten. Anyone could sign Augusta Exeter to a man who had seen her
signature only once.
"I hope you won't be found out; I don't see how you can be," said
Augusta.
"I can't see that it matters much if I am," answered Pearl. "I'll
try to put it off, anyhow, until they have become attached to me for
myself." And then suddenly falling back in her chair, she stared at
her friend with opened eyes. "My dear, I can't do it! How could I have
forgotten? I can't leave Alfred!"
Alfred was not a beautiful young lover, as her tone of lingering
affection might have seemed to indicate, but a peculiarly ugly
black-and-white cat--black where he ought to have been white, and
vice versa--that is to say, black round one eye, which made him look
dissipated, and black about the nose, which made him look dirty. Also
he had lost one paw. Pearl had rescued him from a band of boys in an
alley and cherished him with a steady maternal affection.
"Oh, Alfred," said Augusta, as if this did not make much difference.
This was not only wrong in tone but she had failed to say the thing
Pearl wanted her to say, namely, that Mrs. Conway would be delighted if
the new governess brought her pet cat with her. Pearl explained that
Alfred was really no trouble in the house--he slept all day and caught
mice at night--except one night he did tumble all the way downstairs on
account of his paw.
"And you'd be surprised, Gussie," said Pearl, her whole generous face
lighting up with admiration; "that cat--that little creature made a
noise like an elephant falling, he's so solid."
But Augusta, who was not so easily moved to admiration as Pearl, was
not at all moved now.
"I can't see," she observed coldly, "what it is you see in Alfred that
makes you love him so."
Pearl, who had really a nice nature, wasn't angry.
"It isn't exactly that I love him so much," she answered. "But I feel
so sorry for him; and when I feel sorry for anyone they to a certain
extent own me. I feel as if I could never make up to them for the way
life has treated them. I feel that way to Alfred--about his paw, you
know."
"You didn't feel that way to the man who cried in the Encyclopedia."
"I should say not," answered Pearl. "No, I can't pity him. He was
such a poor sport about it. Men are poor sports where women are
concerned--even Horace. If you had asked him to break his word because
you had had a brain storm he'd have been shocked."
"He'd have been immensely flattered," said Augusta reflectively.
"But he thinks it's absolutely all right for him to break up all your
business arrangements because he goes off halfcocked with a fantastic
idea that you've fallen in love with a man you merely want to work for."
Augusta thought a minute and then she said, "It wasn't quite so
fantastic as you think, Pearl. I was attracted by Mr. Wood. I might
have fallen in love with him if I had been brought into contact with
him much more. Oh, Pearl, haven't you ever felt a sudden charm like
that?"
Pearl shook her head: She could not say,--perhaps she did not really
herself understand why such emotions were forbidden to her, but the
true reason was that if her speaking countenance had ever turned upon
a man with that thought in mind the next instant her lovely nose would
have been buried in a tweed lapel or grating against a stiff collar.
"You know," Augusta went on, "that I really love Horace; and Mr. Wood
took no interest in me, except as a governess for his nieces; but have
you never said to yourself, 'There is the type of man whom I could have
loved madly if only things had been different'?"