Something mocking and teasing in her tone unnerved Pearl a little; so
that instead of following the direction of Mrs. Conway's eyes she said
rather wildly, "Where?"
Durland came to her rescue by politely giving her a large silver frame
in which was the photograph of a man she was prepared to admire, and
so she did admire him--so much that something tense was apparent as
she gazed into those China-blue eyes, which looked--if one had not had
private information--as if they were brown.
Mrs. Conway watched with sly amusement. The mocking quality in her
question had not arisen, as Pearl half feared, from any doubt as to
the new governess' identity, but rather from the suspicion that there
was more between her brother and this lovely creature than had been
confessed. Like many gentle sweet people, Edna Conway was extremely
suspicious; her mind ran rapidly over a situation, examining though
not necessarily believing all the darkest possibilities. She did not
actually suspect her brother of finding a safe home for a dangerous
girl during his absence, but she did say to herself--perhaps not
unnaturally, "There's more in this than meets the eye."
A voice from the piazza called, "Did Anthony's pearl arrive?" And a
woman in evening dress entered.
"Yes, Cora, this is she," said Mrs. Conway, and she added with a
certain hint of malice, "You ought to know each other--both so
consecrated to doing whatever Anthony wants done. Miss Exeter, Miss
Wellington."
Miss Wellington's emotions were clearly written on her face. She
had been in love with Anthony ever since he succeeded. This which
sounds like a paradox was the simple truth. To her, success was not
necessarily financial--though Wood's had had this agreeable aspect--but
importance and preëminence were to her as essential elements in male
attraction as feminine beauty is to most men. When she was eighteen and
Anthony still in the School of Mines there had been sentimental scenes
which had left her cold. She occasionally referred to them as "the time
when you thought you wanted to marry me," and he did not contradict
her. He had thought he did. He still admired her--she was elegant
in appearance, beautifully dressed, competent in all the practical
aspects of life. If she had married someone else he would have said to
her, "Your marriage was a great blow to me, Cora. I had always fancied
that some day you and I----" But he never would have said it until
after she was safely married.
She had, however, no intention of marrying anyone else--for the simple
reason that Anthony was by far the most attractive man of importance
that she knew. Her feelings on discovering Pearl--the young person she
had heard described as being of merely pleasing appearance--to be an
exuberant beauty, and discovering her, moreover, staring sentimentally
at Anthony's picture, were not suspicions; she had the conviction of
disaster. She couldn't be cordial; and, Pearl, who had the kind of
sensitiveness that comes from generosity, not from egotism, saw that
the moment had come for her to go upstairs and write her first letter
to the man whose face she liked so much.
She had always been a poor correspondent. She had never enjoyed
writing before, but now the idea of pouring herself out--or rather not
herself, but her observation of a situation in which he was vitally
interested--delighted her. All of us, it has been said, can write well
if we have something interesting to say. What Pearl had to say could
not fail to be interesting to the man she was writing to. There was no
motive for caution. At last she had found a man with whom she could
be candid and natural. Late into the night the sound of a portable
typewriter could be heard ticking from the room of the new governess.
It was not easy to put a routine into operation in the Conway
household. At half past nine, the hour set for Antonia's lessons,
Antonia was nowhere to be found. Pearl at last ventured to tap at Mrs.
Conway's bedroom door. Mrs. Conway was sitting up in bed, in white
satin and yellow lace, with her breakfast tray on her lap.
In response to the news that her youngest child was missing, she
answered, "She's probably gone crabbing. I'm afraid that if you want to
do lessons in summer you will have to get up a little earlier. She was
out of the house by seven, I dare say." And she smiled maliciously.
Pearl saw that coöperation was unlikely, hostility probable, and
withdrew.
Durland, her second pupil, presented himself a little ahead of time. He
came downstairs at ten, drank a cup of black coffee and ate a peach.
He was recklessly wearing his last pair of clean white trousers. He was
paler and more like a young bird than usual. He, too, had his problems.
While willing to oblige Miss Exeter in every particular, while eager to
help her and make her appear a worker of miracles, her mere proximity
prevented his mind from functioning at all. Do what she could, her
efforts to get him thinking about the problem of three men, A, B and
C, who, working together, could do a piece of work in three days, was
like trying to crank a dead automobile. She tried beaming upon him, she
tried being severe; either way his intense emotion flooded his mental
processes.
She thought, "I've solved worse problems than this, but I'm sure I
don't know what to do."
He himself gave her the clew. She had explained for the third time
that if you let _x_ equal the number of days that it took A, working
alone--when he interrupted her. He was sitting beside her, leaning his
head on his hand and staring at her in a maze of admiration.