IN THE MESHES OF A GOLDEN NET.
[Illustration]
Of course Adelaide did not feel it necessary to tell Mr. Mudge all the
consequences of our Halloween party, but only the facts of our having
used the turret staircase on that memorable night.
"And now," she said, with a laugh, "Mr. Mudge has gone racing off to
investigate Professor Waite. I seem doomed to get that poor man into
trouble. Though of course he never could be suspected of this robbery."
Milly had entered while Adelaide was speaking, and she uttered a little
cry of dismay. "Professor Waite suspected! that could never be!"
"Circumstances are against him," Winnie replied. "Mr. Mudge believes
that the robbery was committed between twelve o'clock and a quarter
past. Now, if Professor Waite was in the studio at that time----"
"He was earlier than usual," Milly replied. "I heard him come up the
staircase. You know the head of our bed is right against the turret
wall. Someway, I always hear his step on the stair, and then he usually
whistles an air from one of the operas. Last night he whistled the
Wedding March in 'Lohengrin.'"
"Then you were lying awake, too, last night," Winnie remarked. "Did you
hear me moving about in this room?"
"Yes," Milly replied hesitatingly.
"Why didn't you say so before?"
"There didn't seem to be any necessity of telling of it," Milly replied.
"You thought it might throw suspicion on me?"
"Oh, no," Milly disclaimed. "No one could suspect you, Winnie, or
Professor Waite, either; the ideas are equally absurd."
"Unless it is proved that the robbery was committed before Professor
Waite came up the stairs, it may not seem at all absurd to Mr. Mudge,"
Winnie continued mercilessly. "Tib and I saw him examining the door into
the studio, and he seemed possessed with the idea that the burglar
entered the room from the studio. I know, too, that Mr. Mudge examined
Professor Waite's tool chest in the studio, and that he found the broken
lock in it, with a screw-driver and other tools, showing that Professor
Waite had been tinkering with the door, trying unsuccessfully to mend
the lock, as we all know."
"You know this! How did you find it out?" Adelaide asked, and Winnie
replied:
"Professor Waite wanted to use his screw-driver and went to his tool
chest after it during the painting lesson to-day. It was gone; so was
the lock to the door. He hunted everywhere, and told me that he was
afraid that Miss Noakes had been in his studio and had discovered the
broken lock, and that we would be called in question for that old
scrape. I felt sure from the first that it was Mr. Mudge, but I did not
mention him, for Madame told us to say nothing about the robbery outside
of our own circle."
"I would do anything to keep Professor Waite out of trouble," Milly
said. "I am the only one who knows that he was in the studio, and I
will not tell."
"Nothing will help Professor Waite so much as the entire truth," Winnie
replied. "Of course he is not the one who took the money. If the person
really responsible can be discovered, or will confess, the Professor and
all other innocent persons will be cleared from suspicion."
"Of course," Milly replied, looking at Winnie in a puzzled way. "And I
am sure," she added hopefully, "that Mr. Mudge will find the guilty
individual soon, if he is as keen as you all seem to think him. I really
dread meeting him, and I am glad he has gone away for to-day. There goes
the supper bell. What a long day this has been!"
After supper Milly woke to a consciousness that she had not prepared
one of her lessons for the next day. She sat puckering her pretty
forehead into ugly wrinkles, and repeating helplessly, "'Populi
Romani!' I am sure I've had that before." Then she began a wild attempt
at translation, with manifold running comments. "'Because Ariovistus,
King of the Germans, had sat down on their boundaries--' Now, was there
anything ever so absurd as that? Why did old Ariovistus want to sit
down on their boundaries?"
"Perhaps the word doesn't mean boundaries here," Adelaide suggested, and
Milly turned patiently to her lexicon--"If _finibus_ comes from
_finitimus_ it may mean neighbors--and then Ariovistus sat down on his
neighbors; well I must say that was cool----"
Milly worked on for a little while in silence, and then exclaimed, "I'm
getting into the sensibility of it now--how's this? 'These things having
been known, Caesar confirmed the mind of all Gaul with words.' He was
always very generous of his words. We have a review to-morrow, and the
ridiculosity of the whole thing comes out. Now just listen to this:
'Wherefore it pleased him to send legates to Ariovistus, who should ask
him to appoint some place in the middle of the others for a colloquy. To
these legates he responded if it was too much trouble for him to come to
himself, himself would come to him and he--Caesar--would then find out
who ought to do the coming. Besides, he would admire to see all Gaul in
a row, and it was no business of Caesar's or his old Populo Romano.' I
rather like his pluck but I'm afraid my translation is rather free.
Then here is a place that I am not quite sure about; 'The Helvetians,
the Tulingians, and the Lotobigians, and all the other igians, in their
boundaries or something, whence they had something else--he commanded
to--thingummy; and because all their fruits were--were--frost bitten, I
guess, and at home nothing was which could tolerate hunger--he commanded
the other ninkums that they should make for them copious corn--' I
perfectly hate Caesar. He was always boasting of his own benefits and
clemency to one tribe in making another support it, and then 'pacifying'
the other tribes by slaying a few thousand of their soldiers, and I just
don't see the use of our muddling our heads with what that stupid,
cruel, conceited old bandit did, anyhow. But if I don't know this lesson
I shall not be able to pass in examination, and you will all graduate
and leave me behind for ages and ages----"
Ordinarily Winnie could not have resisted such an appeal as this. I have
known her to patiently translate all of Milly's lessons for her, and
then as patiently explain them to her over and over again, until some
faint idea of their meaning had penetrated her befogged little brain.
And having spent the evening thus, go unprepared to her geometry, and
stoically receive a cipher as her class mark, and see Cynthia carry off
the honors of the day. But to-night Winnie did not seem to see the
forget-me-not eyes turned appealingly to her. She appeared to be
completely absorbed in her Cicero. I endured Milly's frowns as long as I
could, and finally pushed aside my own studies, and said, "Come into my
bedroom where we will not disturb the other girls, and I will straighten
it out for you."
Milly was delighted. She threw her arms around my neck and thrust some
cream peppermints into my pocket.
We were in the midst of Caesar's negotiations with Ariovistus, and had
nearly finished the paragraph, when Milly suddenly looked up.
"Tib," she said, "do you know whatever became of Madame Celeste's last
bill? I thought I put it in my bureau drawer, but I must have left it
around somewhere. Have you seen it? I can't find it."
"Then you could not pay it this afternoon?" I asked evasively.
"Oh, yes! she made out another bill and receipted it for me, but I want
to be sure that the first one is destroyed."
"I thought all your money was taken; where did you get enough to pay
this bill?"
"Oh! that is a secret," she replied, with a pleased little flutter of
importance. "It's no manner of consequence how I came by it. I've paid
the bill--that's the essential thing--and I've got out of that dreadful
quicksand. Oh, Tib, I have been so unhappy, and Cynthia has been so
mean! I did not think it possible that any one could be so horrid."
"Tell me all about it, dear," I said, caressing the curly blond head
which nestled on my knee.
"I believe I will. I feel like telling somebody, and Winnie is so queer
lately--she freezes me. She has disapproved of me and scolded me ever
since she found out about Cynthia's dress, and I can't bear to be
disapproved of. It isn't one bit nice. Adelaide is perfectly splendid;
she likes me and pets me, but perhaps she wouldn't if she knew
everything; but you are just my dear old Tib. You would always like me,
wouldn't you, even if I were real wicked?"
"Yes indeed, Milly," I replied; "and so would Winnie; you don't half
realize her love for you."
"Then she has a very queer way of showing it. She makes me feel as if I
had committed some dreadful sin, and she was urging me to confess. She
is just about as pleasant a companion as that Florentine monk--what's
his name? who kept nagging Lorenzo de Medici--even when the poor man was
just as busy as he could be a-dying."
"Savonarola acted as he thought was kindest and best for his poor guilty
friend. Sometimes the surgeon who probes our wound is the truest
friend--But you are going to tell me about your trouble--I've noticed
how red your little nose has been of late."
"It was partly Celeste's fault, too," Milly said. "Cynthia's and
Celeste's and mine. Of course the fault was mostly mine. You see it all
started with the minuet--with which Professor Fafalata closed his
dancing class just before the Christmas holidays. He wished us to be
costumed in the Florentine style of the early part of the sixteenth
century. I was talking it over with Celeste, and she said I ought to
have the front of my petticoat covered with some jewelled net which she
had just imported from Paris. It was very expensive, but very beautiful,
and showy in the evening. The net was made of gold thread set with
imitation amethysts and rubies, an arabesque design, copied from some
mediaeval embroidery, and just the thing for me, since I was to represent
a young princess of the house of Medici. I thought that I would write
mother, who was in Florida then, and ask her to lend me one of her party
dresses, and that it would be just the thing to put over it; and while I
was admiring it and before I had really ordered it, or realized what she
was doing, Celeste had cut me off a yard of it, and had charged it to my
account--fifteen dollars. I brought it here, you remember, only to find
that Madame had interested Professor Waite in the minuet, and that he
had promised to lend the girls some beautiful costumes of the period
which he had brought back from Paris. There was that lovely heliotrope
velvet edged with ermine for Adelaide, and a faded pink brocade sprigged
with primroses for me.
"So of course there wasn't the slightest need for my golden net. I
carried it to Celeste to see if she would take it back. She said that
she would like to oblige me, but as it was cut she couldn't quite do
that, but she would try to dispose of it for me. And she did sell it a
few days later for ten dollars. I thought that was better than to lose
the entire sum. She handed me the money, saying that it would put her
to some trouble to change her accounts, and I had better let the bill go
in just as she had made it out, and I could hand mother the ten dollars
and explain matters. I really intended to do so, but I was nearly
bankrupt that month. My pocket money just seemed to walk away. I had
invited Adelaide to see the play of the 'Harvard Hasty Pudding,' and of
course I had to have Miss Noakes chaperone us, and I hadn't money enough
left to buy the tickets."
"Why didn't you tell her so?" I asked.
"Oh! I couldn't back out after I had asked her; and I owed her a little
treat of some kind, for she invited me to see the cadet drill at her
brother's school.
"Well, after I had broken the ten dollar bill to get the tickets, the
first thing I knew it was all gone. I knew mother wouldn't mind, and
that I could tell her any time after she came home, but it never seemed
necessary to mention it in my letters and I never did."
"Oh, Milly!"
"Horrid of me, wasn't it? But I had worse temptations. My pocket money
is so very skimpy compared with what the other girls have, and with
what I have, too, in the way of credit for certain things, that I am
often really embarrassed and have to turn and twist and borrow and pinch
to make it stretch out. When you girls clubbed together and paid for
Polo's sisters at the Home, I wanted awfully to help, but I couldn't.
You see father lets me subscribe so much annually to the Home and he
sends in a check every year for me, and thinks that ought to be enough.
But I don't feel as though I was giving it at all, for it does not even
pass through my hands. I don't deny myself to give it, as Adelaide does
for her charities, and I haven't a penny for any special case of
distress or sudden emergency which I may happen to hear of.
"Do you know, Tib, that Satan actually suggested to me how easily I
might have extra pocket money by ordering things from Celeste, and
letting her sell them again in just the same way that she managed with
the golden net? I knew that she would be glad enough to do it, for I
found out afterward that Rosario Ricos bought that net of Celeste and
paid her full price for it! So you see she kept back five dollars on the
second sale, besides making a good commission on the first."
"But you didn't do it, Milly dear; you surely did not obtain your
charity money in any such dishonest way as that?"
"No, Tib. I didn't do it for charity. I some way felt that God would not
accept such a gift from me; but there came a time when I had a worse
temptation still. You know all last term papa used to ride with me every
Saturday afternoon either at the riding academy or in the Park. Well,
something is the matter with his liver; it hurts him to trot, and he has
had to give it up, and Wiggins took me out. But I hate riding with a
groom, and so one day when papa called I told him I didn't care for any
more riding this winter. This happened the week you went home to help
tend your mother when she was sick, and that is the reason you never
heard of it. I was taking father up to the studio when I said it, to
show him Professor Waite's Academy picture, and papa was so vexed with
me about my not wanting to ride that he didn't half notice the pictures.
"He took to Professor Waite, though, right away; and just as he was
leaving asked him if he rode. 'When I am so fortunate as to have the
opportunity,' Professor Waite replied.
"'Very good,' said papa. 'Then possibly you will oblige me by
accompanying my daughter and one of her friends on an occasional ride
in the park.' He explained that he had a good saddle horse, which
needed exercise, which he would be glad to have him use; and that,
what was more important, I needed exercise too, and was so perverse
that I did not want to take it alone. 'And now,' said he, 'the cruel
parent proposes, Milly, to pay for another horse for one of your other
girl friends. I suppose you will choose Adelaide, and if Professor
Waite will act as your escort occasionally, I think you can manage to
extract some pleasure from the exercise.'
"Of course I was perfectly delighted, and hugged papa, and called him a
dear old thing. Professor Waite, who had looked awfully bored and had
even begun to mumble something about being too busy, began to take an
interest in the matter as soon as Adelaide's name was mentioned, and
papa had an interview with Madame and got her permission to let us ride
every Saturday morning. Adelaide was down at her tenement, and it was
left that I was to tell her when she returned, and I thought everything
was settled. But when Adelaide came in she was looking troubled over
some of her tenants' tribulations and she only half listened to me.
"'I would like above all things to ride again,' she said 'as I used to
on the plains when I lived out West; but there is no use talking about
it, Milly dear, I can't do it. I have no riding habit, and I cannot
afford to have one made. Thank you just as much, but don't say another
word about it.'
"You can imagine how disappointed I was. I knew very well that neither
Madame nor mamma would let me ride alone with Professor Waite, even if
papa would permit it; and I knew, too, that the Professor would lose
every bit of interest in the plan if Adelaide did not go. I was not
thoroughly selfish, Tib. I wanted Adelaide to have a good time too, and
I wanted Professor Waite to be happy. I told myself that if he loved
Adelaide, I would do all I could to help him, and perhaps some day he
would remember that it was through me that he had won her, and like me
a little for it, and never suspect that I--that I----"
Her voice broke and she buried her head on my shoulder. "Dear Milly," I
said, caressing and soothing her as best I could. "Of course you were
not selfish. Well, and what happened next?"
"I couldn't give up the plan, Tib, and I thought that if all that kept
Adelaide from joining in it was the lack of a habit, that could be
easily arranged. I would make her a present of it. I was sure that
father would give me twenty-five dollars for my next birthday present,
and I thought it would do no harm to spend it in advance. So I asked
Celeste how much cloth it would take, and I had it sent her from
Arnold's, a beautiful fine dark-green broadcloth. And then I told
Adelaide what I had done and that she must go around to Celeste's with
me and be fitted. Do you believe it, she would not? She said that it
would be wrong for her to accept such a present from me; and besides,
nothing would induce her to ride with Professor Waite, for she couldn't
endure him. That put an end to the ride in the Park. Cynthia would have
taken Adelaide's place, but when I told Professor Waite that Adelaide
would not go, he looked so angry that I saw he wanted to get out of the
arrangement, and I suggested that perhaps we had better give up the
plan. He said, very well, just as I pleased, and looked so relieved that
I almost cried then and there. Papa was so provoked when I told him of
it that I did not dare say a word about the riding-habit, especially as
he had just handed me my little Swiss watch as my birthday present. So I
pretended to be pleased with it, and there was that dreadful cloth for
the riding-habit on my hands, and I didn't know what to do. Mamma was
still in Florida, and papa said that she was not very strong and must
not be worried--I must only write cheerful letters to her. I didn't feel
very cheerful, I assure you. Then Cynthia told me one day that she had
twenty dollars with which she wanted to purchase a winter suit and she
would like my advice about it. I was in debt just twenty dollars for the
cloth for the habit, and I told her about it and begged her to take it
off my hands. She went with me to Celeste's and liked it very much. The
only trouble was that her mother had intended the twenty dollars to pay
for both material and making, and of course she ought to get something
not nearly so nice.
"She said at last that if I would get Celeste to wait for her pay she
would take the dress and pay her later. I thought only of paying for the
material at Arnold's, for I had expected to have the money by that time,
and had asked them to make a separate bill out, and not put it on my
book that goes every month to papa. So we arranged it. Cynthia gave me
her twenty dollars and I settled for the cloth, and Celeste made the
dress for her, and furnished the trimmings. But how she did run them up!
She had a band of real sable around the hem of the skirt and trimmed the
jacket with it too; and made her that cute little toque with heads and
tails on it, and when the bill came in it was sixty dollars. Cynthia was
frightened. 'I never can pay it in the world,' she said. 'I think your
dressmaker is frightfully extortionate; and I had no idea it would be so
much.' I felt sorry for her and I felt, too, that I was to blame for
getting her into the predicament; so I said we would divide the expense,
and she should only pay half. But she grumbled at that, and said that I
had inveigled her into the trouble, and that she had a dressmaker on
125th Street who would have made the suit for ten dollars. When I
reminded her of the fur, she said she did not believe it was real sable,
and she didn't want it any way.
"I offered to take it to Gunther's and see if I could get something for
it, if she would rip it off, but she said she would do no such thing;
the dress would be a fright without it. It was all a miserable mess, and
I was so unhappy. It would have been some consolation if Cynthia had
been grateful, but she blamed me for everything, and I think that,
considering all I have done for her, she treated me very shabbily when
she said that Adelaide was the only lady in the Amen Corner, and she did
not care to speak to any of us again."
"That was like Cynthia, and I am sure that the loss of her friendship
can only be a benefit to you. But, Milly, you must bravely shoulder the
greater part of the blame yourself. Your first wrong step was in getting
the golden net without permission, then in letting Celeste pay you for
it and yet having it charged to your father. Then, again, in getting
the cloth for Adelaide's habit without consulting your father you
deliberately did wrong; and in bargaining with Cynthia, instead of going
straight to your father and confessing your fault, you waded still more
deeply in----"
"I know it; but there you are scolding me just like Winnie, and it
doesn't make the trouble a bit easier to bear to be told that I deserve
it all, and am a miserable little sinner. You needn't imagine that I did
not realize what a wretch I was; only I didn't seem to see the way out.
Everything I did to extricate myself got me deeper into the quicksand. I
saved every way, all that I could; one month I laid by two dollars and
thirty-seven cents, but the next I slipped back three and a quarter, and
Cynthia handed me a five dollar bill one day, and told me that was every
cent that she could pay, and I must let her off from the rest. And to
crown it all, Winnie found out about it, and nearly drove me wild. Oh,
Tib, I have been in such trouble, what with this dreadful bill that I
didn't dare tell papa about, and Professor Waite, and all my lessons so
hard, and my marks getting worse than ever, and Winnie turning on me. It
just seemed as if I would die, and I almost wished I could. I thought
seriously about killing myself only the night before last. I think if I
could have found any poison that would not have hurt I would have taken
it."
"Don't talk so, Milly; it is wicked. You would have done nothing of the
sort."
"But I would. I went into the chemical laboratory and looked at the
green and blue stuff in the test tubes, but I couldn't quite screw my
courage up to do more than taste just a little bit of one kind that
looked more deadly than the rest. It was horrid, and took the skin off
of the tip of my tongue. I ate a quarter of a pound of assorted mints
before I could get the taste out of my mouth. If I could have found some
laudanum, or something that would not have tasted so bad, or would have
killed me by putting me to sleep, I would have taken it that night, for
I was miserable enough to do anything, however unscrupulous and
reckless. If I hadn't been so very desperate perhaps I would never have
dared to do what I did do; the thing which really broke the meshes of
the golden net which seemed to have me in its toils. I didn't mean to
tell any one, but I was just driven to it, and I know you will keep my
secret--besides I have told you so much that you might as well know all.
Tib, I----"
"Milly, it is time we were all in bed." It was Winnie who spoke. She
stood in the doorway, cold and commanding, and Milly cowered before her.
She did not offer to kiss her, but shrank, frightened, away to her room.
"Oh, Winnie," I said, "why did you come in just then? Milly was just
about to confess to me what she did to get the money with which she has
just paid Celeste."
"You have no business to coax her secret from her," Winnie replied
angrily. "Whatever it is, you have no right to know it unless she has
wronged you. I am afraid our dear Milly is in deep waters. But whatever
she may have done lies between her own conscience and God, and I believe
that He will show her how to make restitution and keep, in the future,
strictly to the right. Oh, my poor, precious Milly! I wish I could
suffer all the consequences of your wrong doing for you, but I can't.
Every sin brings suffering, and it is the suffering that purifies. I
can't save you that experience, but I will shield you from open shame if
I can. I forbid you, Tib, to pry into Milly's affairs any further, to
question her, or allow her to confide in you, or even suspect her. Only
pray for her, and love her; that is all you can do."
"It is you who suspect her," I exclaimed hotly, "and unjustly, Winnie.
Milly has been extravagant and thoughtless; worse than that, she has
been underhanded and deceitful in regard to expenditures, but she did
not take the money from the cabinet; of that I am positive."
"Have I ever charged her with anything so dreadful?" Winnie asked. "Have
I not tried in every way to keep that suspicion from every one? Give me
credit for that, at least."
"In words, Winnie; but in your secret thought you have wronged her. I
know that you love her with a sort of a fierce, maternal love which
makes you want her to be perfect, and which fears the worst and tortures
yourself with imaginary impossibilities. I tell you that Milly has
learned a very thorough lesson in regard to deception; she will never
offend in that way again; and as to this affair of the cabinet, I would
as soon suspect you as her."
"Suspect me, then," Winnie cried. "I wish you would. I hoped that
Cynthia was going to lead suspicion my way, but it seems she can't do
it. I have too good a reputation." And Winnie laughed cynically. "Well,
the time may come when you may not think so well of me. Meantime, I
thank you with all my heart for believing in Milly."