Not half so cuckoo as you are now, you silly elf.
Miserably she packed it in its neat box and was in the act of enclosing
the farewell letter when Violet came in. She had been taking the air.
One glance Violet gave to the red and swollen lids and the face of
tragedy. “Why, my dear, dear child!” The vein of kindness in her was
deep and true. Those piteous eyes, that piteous mouth very surely
roused it. “Do tell me.” A naughty, dangerous little witch, but she was
genuinely distressed to see Mame suffer. Something must have hurt her
rather horribly. “Tell me, what is it?”
“I’ve let some of you folks put one over on me.” Mame fiercely brushed
aside new tears.
It was not a moment for a smile. Yet it was hard to resist one at that
whimsical and quaint defiance. Even in the hour of desolation the minx
was like no one else. She had an odd power of attraction. It was by
no means easy to dislike her. After all she had only acted in strict
accordance with her nature.
“What is it? Tell me.”
Mame suddenly handed Celimene the letter she had written.
“You--you are sending back the ring?” There was a note in the voice
of Bill’s sister which suggested that it feared to be other than
incredulous. “You--you are breaking off the engagement?”
“I’ll say yes.”
Perhaps for the first time in their intercourse real emotion flooded
the face of the more accomplished woman of the world. “Dear child!” she
said softly. And then abruptly turning aside as the bleak face of Mame
became more than she could bear, “You--you make one feel indescribably
mean.”
It was perfectly true. She undoubtedly did, the little go-getter.
Under all the surface crudity, which month by month was ceasing to be
anything like as crude as it had been, was something big, vital, true.
Lady Violet was not given to self-depreciation. She knew her power of
displacement only too well, even in the queer muss of a modern world.
She might have been tempted to laugh at this rather pathetic thing;
she might have played her off successfully against certain pretentious
people, yet somehow the minx was riding off with all the honours. Mame
already had taught her a pretty sharp lesson. It was one she would
never forget. Lady Violet for the future would always remember that the
player of unlawful games must keep an eye on the policeman. And now
Mame was teaching her something else.
Seldom had this woman of the world found herself quite so much at
a loss. Face to face with Mame’s heroism, for her self-sacrifice
amounted to that, mere words became an impertinence. The thing to
strike her about this good child when she set eyes on her first was the
extraordinary grit that was in her; and it was that quality which spoke
to her now.
Abruptly she forced a laugh to keep herself from tears. “My dear, you
make one feel like thirty cents.”
It was one of the choicest phrases of the little go-getter, one among
the many that had appealed to her friend. Somehow that phrase seemed to
save the situation. Yet not altogether.
“I guess you don’t, honey.” Mame spoke bitterly. “And I guess you never
will. You and your Mommer and the friends and neighbours and that old
house will see to that. I’m the one to feel like thirty cents.”
The voice was so desolate that even Lady Violet, who did not care much
for the practice, could not forbear from giving her a kiss. “I remember
your saying that you had come over to pull the big stuff. Well, I
rather think you’ve pulled it.” And her friend laughed again to keep
her courage up.
“I didn’t come to pull this sort of stuff.” Mame snorted as she brushed
her eyes fiercely. “I’ve gone cuckoo. And to-morrow I’ll think so.”
“One has to go cuckoo, as you call it, hasn’t one, to do the things
worth doing? I could no more have let go that foolish bird, had I been
you, than I could have jumped over the moon.”
“No, I guess not. And even now, if you don’t want to lose him you had
better watch the cage.”
“How can we help you to keep your little paws off the foolish creature?”
“By not letting me see him again.” Mame was stoical. As she spoke she
wrapped up the box containing the ring and the letter she had written
in a piece of brown paper; and then applied red sealing wax. “And if
you are wise you’ll just see that he gets married pretty soon to--to--”
Even her bravery was not quite equal to the task of pronouncing the
hated name. “I think I’ll go to the post office and send this back in a
registered parcel.”
She quitted the room abruptly, leaving her friend to some very
sharp-edged thoughts.