NEPTUNE'S SECOND DAUGHTER
"Chicago, Illinois.
"Dearest Carol and David--
"Carol, dear, an awful thing has happened. Do you remember the
millionaire's son who discovered me up the cherry tree years ago when I
was an infant? He comes to see me now and then. He is very nice and
attentive, and all of my friends have selected the color schemes for
their boudoirs in my forthcoming palatial home. One night he
telephoned and said his mother was in town with him, and they should
like to come right up if I did not mind. I did not know he was in
town, I hardly knew he had a mother, and I was in the act of shampooing
my hair. Phyllis was making candy, and Gladys was reading aloud to us
both. Imagine the mother of a millionaire's son coming right up, and I
in a shampoo.
"'Oh,' I wailed, 'I haven't anything to wear, and I am not used to
millionaires' sons' mothers, and I won't know what to say to her.'
"'Leave it to us, Connie!' cried my friends valiantly.
"Gladys whirled the magazine under the bed, and Phyllis turned out the
electricity under the chafing-dish and put the candy in the window to
finish at a later date.
"Did I tell you about our housekeeping venture? Gladys is a private
secretary to something down-town and gets an enormous salary, thirty a
week. Phyllis is an artist and has a studio somewhere, and we are
great friends. So we took a cunning little apartment for three months,
and we all live together and cook our meals in the baby kitchenette
when we feel domestic, and dine out like princesses when we feel
lordly. We have the kitchenette, and a bathroom with two kinds of
showers, and a bedroom apiece, though mine is really a closet, and two
sitting-rooms, so two of us can have beaus the same night. If we feel
the need of an extra sitting-room--that is, three beaus a night--we
draw cuts to see who has to resort to the park, or a movie, or the
ice-cream parlor, or the kitchenette. Our time is up next week and we
shall return modestly to our boarding-houses. It is great fun, but it
is expensive, and we are so busy.
"We have lovely times. The girls are--not like me. They are really
society buds, and wear startling evening gowns and go places in taxis,
and are quite the height of fashion. It is a wonder they put up with
me at all. Still every establishment must have at least one
Cinderella. But let me admit honestly and Methodistically that I do
less Cinderelling than either of them. Gladys darns my stockings, and
Phyllis makes my bed fully half the time.
"Anyhow, when Andrew Hedges, millionaire's son, telephoned that his
mother was coming up, they fell upon me, and one rubbed and one fanned,
and they both talked at once, and in the end I agreed to leave myself
in their hands. They knew all about millionaires' sons' mothers, it
seemed, and would fix me up just exactly O. K. right. Gladys and I are
the same size, and she has an exquisite semi-evening gown of Nile green
and honest-to-goodness lace which I have long admired humbly from my
corner among the ashes. Just the thing. I should wear it, and make
the millionaire's son's mother look like twenty cents.
"Wickedly and wilfully I agreed. So when the hair was dry enough to
manage, they marched me into Gladys' room--the only one of the three
capable of accommodating three of us--and turned the mirrors to the
wall. I protested at that. I wanted to see my progress under their
skilful fingers.
"'No,' said Phyllis sagely. 'It looks horrible while it is going on.
You must wait until you are finished, and then burst upon your own
enraptured vision. You will enchant yourself.'
"Gladys seconded her and I assented weakly. I know I am not naturally
weak, Carol, but the thought of a millionaire's son's mother affected
me very strangely. It took all the starch out of my knees, and the
spine out of my backbone.
"By this time I was established in Gladys' green slippers with
rhinestone buckles, and Gladys was putting all of her own and Phyllis'
rings on my fingers, and Phyllis was using a crimping iron on my curls.
I was too curly already, but Phyllis said natural curliness was not the
thing any more. Then Gladys began dabbing funny sticky stuff all over
my fingers, and scratching my eyebrows, and powdering about twenty
layers on my face and throat. After that, she rubbed my finger nails
until I could almost see what they were doing to me. I never thought I
had much hair, but when Phyllis got through with me I could hardly
carry it. The ladies in Hawaii who carry bushel baskets on their heads
will tell you how I felt. And whenever I moved it wabbled. But they
both clapped their hands and said I looked like a dream, and of course
I would have acquired another bushel had they advised it.
"I trusted them because they look so wonderful when they are
finished,--just right,--never too much so.
"Our bell rang then, and Phyllis answered and said, 'Tell them Miss
Starr will be in in a moment.'
"There is a general apartment maid, and when we wish to be very
perfectly fine, we borrow her,--for a quarter.
"When I knew they had arrived, I leaped up, panic-stricken, and dived
head first into that pile of Nile green silk and real lace. They
rescued me tenderly, and pushed me in, and hooked me here, and buttoned
me there, both panting and gasping, I madly hurrying them on, because I
can't get over that silly old parsonage notion that it isn't good form
to keep folks waiting.
"'There you are,' cried Gladys.
"'Fly,' shouted Phyllis.
"Out I dashed, recollected myself in the bathroom, and--yes, I did that
foolish thing, Carol. Your vanity would have saved you such a blunder.
But I tore myself from their blood-stained hands, and went in to meet a
millionaire's son's mother without looking myself over in the mirror.
"When I parted the curtains, Andy leaped to his feet with his usual
quick eagerness, but he stopped abruptly and his lips as well as his
eyes widened.
"'How do you do?' I said, moistening my lips which already felt too
wet, only I didn't know what was the matter with them. I held out my
hand, unwontedly white, and he took it flabbily, instead of briskly and
warmly as he usually did.
"'Mother,' he said, 'I want you to meet Miss Starr.'
"She wasn't at all the kind of millionaire's son's mother we have read
about. She had no lorgnette, and she did not look me over
superciliously. But she had turned my way as though confident of being
pleased, and her soft eyes clouded a little, though she smiled sweetly.
Her hair was silver white and curled over her forehead and around her
ears. She had dimples, and she stuck her chin up like a girl when she
laughed. She wore the softest, sweetest kind of a wistaria colored
silk. I was charmed with her. It could not have been mutual.
"She held out her hand, smiling so gently, still with the cloud in her
eyes, and we all sat down. She did not look me over, though she must
have yearned to do so. But Andy looked me over thoroughly,
questioningly, from the rhinestone pin at the top of the swaying hair,
to the tips of my Nile green shoes. I tried to talk, but my hair
wabbled so, and little invisible hair pins kept visibleing themselves
and sliding into my lap and down my neck, and my lips felt so moist and
sticky, and my skin didn't fit like skin, and--still I was determined
to live up to my part, and I talked on and on, and--then, quite
suddenly, I happened to glance into a mirror beside me. There was some
one else in the room. Some one in a marvelous dress, with a
white-washed throat, with lips too red, and cheeks too pink, and brows
too black, some one with an unbelievable quantity of curls on top of
her, and--I turned around to see whom it might be. Nobody there. I
looked back to the mirror. I was not dreaming,--of course there was
some one in the room. No, the room was empty save we three. I turned
suspiciously to Mrs. Hedges. She was still in her place, a smiling
study in wistaria and silver gray. I looked at Andy, immaculate in
black and white. Then--sickening realization.
"I stood up abruptly. The atrocity in the mirror rose also.
"'That isn't I,' I cried imploringly.
"Mrs. Hedges looked startled, but Andy came to my side at once.
"'No, it certainly isn't,' he said heartily. 'What on earth have you
been doing to yourself, Connie?'
"I went close to the mirror, inspecting myself, grimly, piteously. I
do not understand it to this day. The girls do the same things to
themselves and they look wonderful,--never like that.
"I rubbed my lips with my fingers, and understood the moisture. I
examined my brows, and knew what the scratching meant. I shook the
pile of hair, and a shower of invisible hair pins rewarded me. I
brushed my fingers across my throat, and a cloud of powder wafted
outward.
"What does it say in the Bible about the way of the unrighteous? Well,
I know just as much about the subject as the Bible does, I think. For
a time I was speechless. I did not wish to blame my friends. But I
could not bear to think that any one should carry away such a vision of
one of father's daughters.
"'Take a good look at me please,' I said, laughing, at last, 'for you
will never see me again. I am Neptune's second daughter. I stepped
full-grown into the world to-night from the hands of my faithless
friends. Another step into my own room, and the lovely lady is gone
forever.'
"Andy understands me, and he laughed. But his mother still smiled the
clouded smile.
"I hurled myself into the depths of self-abasement. I spared no harsh
details. I told of the shampoo, and the candy on the window-ledge, the
magazine under the bed. Religiously I itemized every article on my
person, giving every one her proper due. Then I excused myself and
went up-stairs. I sneaked into my own room, removed the dream of Nile
green and lace and jumped up and down on it a few times, in stocking
feet, so the girls would not hear,--and relieved my feelings somewhat.
I think I had to resort to gold dust to resurrect my own
complexion,--not the best in the world perhaps, but mine, and I am for
it. I combed my hair. I donned my simple blue dress,--cost four-fifty
and Aunt Grace made it.' I wore my white kid slippers and stockings.
My re-debut--ever hear the word?--was worth the exertion. Andy's face
shone as he came to meet me. His mother did not know me.
"'I am Miss Starr,' I said. 'The one and only.'
"'Why, you sweet little thing,' she said, smiling, without the cloud.
"We went for a long drive, and had supper down-town at eleven o'clock,
and she kept me with her at the hotel all night. It was Saturday. I
slept with her and used all of her night things and toilet articles. I
told her about the magnificent stories I am going to write sometime,
and she told me what a darling Andy was when he was a baby, and between
you and me, I doubt if they have a million dollars to their name.
Honestly, Carol, they are just as nice as we are.
"They stayed in Chicago three days, and she admitted she came on
purpose to get acquainted with me. She made me promise to spend a week
with them in Cleveland when I can get away, and she gave me the dearest
little pearl ring to remember her by. But I wonder--I wonder-- Anyhow
I can't tell him until he asks me, can I? And he has never said a
word. You know yourself, Carol, you can't blurt things out at a man
until he gives you a chance. So my conscience is quite free. And she
certainly is adorable. Think of a mother-in-law like that, pink and
gray, with dimples. Yes, she is my ideal of a mother-in-law. I
haven't met 'father' yet, but he doesn't need to be very nice. A man
can hide a hundred faults in one fold of a pocketbook the size of his.
"Lots of love to you both,--and you write to Larkie oftener than you do
to me, which isn't fair, for she has a husband and a baby and is within
reaching distance of father, and I am an orphan, and a widow, and a
stranger in a strange land.
"But I love you anyhow.
"Connie."