"You"ll tell Cary this, won"t you, Faith? All but that last. Explain how I came to get tangled up with the girl. You can do it so she won"t suspect that you"re working for me. You can bring it in casually, without bungling it. Tell her I never gave a serious thought to Flora in my life."
"I will, and I"ll get her here for you!" I cried, as he rose to go.
I followed him to the door, and as I closed it after him the door of the butler"s pantry opened noiselessly, and there stood old Mary with her finger on her lip. She motioned me to precede her, and she followed me down the hall to my room and into it, carefully closing the door behind her. "Missis," she whispered, kneeling down beside my chair. "Scold me! Do! I"ve been made the real fool of by that little blister. Lord, if I wouldn"t like to take her across my knee with a fat pine shingle in my good right hand. Listen! She heard you at the telephone, and knew you expected Mr. Beguelin this afternoon, so she comes to me just after lunch and she says to me, "Mary, Mr. Beguelin is coming this evening, so I think I"ll take a little nap on the couch if you"ll cover me up with the brown rug." The brown rug, see? Just the colour of the couch, and the one I always keep put away for the Boss.
Of course I couldn"t refuse after she said you said to give it to her--"
"I didn"t," I interrupted.
"I know it. I know it now! But the little devil knew that I was going out, and that you would answer the door yourself--"
"Mary!" I shrieked, in a whisper. "She wasn"t in there all the time, was she?"
"That"s just what she was! Listening to every word you said. I just came in a minute ago, or I"d have let you know. But he got up to go, just as I had my hand on the door-k.n.o.b."
"What shall I do?" I murmured, distractedly. Then, after a pause, I said, "Perhaps she was asleep and didn"t hear!"
Mary gave me such a contemptuous look that I hurriedly apologized.
Then the Angel came in, and I told Mary to go, and then I told him everything. He thought quite awhile before speaking.
"Do you care for her very much, Faith dear?" he said, in his dear, gentle way.
"If she has done the abominable thing that Mary says, I"ll--hate her!
I"ll turn her out of the house!" I cried, viciously.
"Ah!" said Aubrey, in a satisfied tone. He knows I wouldn"t, but it does do me so much good to threaten to do the awful things I"d like to do if I were a cruel woman.
He rose and left the room. I started to follow him, but he waved me back.
"I won"t be gone a moment. Wait for me here."
I waited three or four years, and then, when I had grown white-haired with age, he came back.
"Begin at the beginning, tell everything, and don"t skip a word," I demanded.
"Well," he began, obediently. "She was sobbing gently--not for effect this time. I went in softly, and asked her what the matter was. She said she had been out all the afternoon to see a friend who had just been obliged to place her mother in a lunatic asylum, and she was crying for sympathy. Then, as she saw me look at my rug, she said Mary had left the rug out for her to take a nap early in the afternoon, and that she had intended to, but had decided to go out instead. Now what I object to is the style of her lying. I admire a good lie, but a clumsy, misshapen, rippled affair like that one is an abomination in the sight of the Lord."
I stood up with a flaming face.
"Don"t get excited," said Aubrey. "She is going home to-morrow. Keep calm to-night, and the next time you see Artie, he will relieve all your feelings by what he will say."
"Why? What does he know?"
"Well, the Also Ran admires athletic girls, you know, not being able to sit astride a horse himself, and through his boasting Artie has discovered that Flora is a crack golf player--won the cup for her college in her junior year."
I fell on the bed in a fit of hysterical laughter.
"If that"s the way you are going to take it, I feel that I can tell you the worst," said Aubrey, with a relieved face. "The fact is, I believe that that girl has a game on with the Also Ran."
"Oh, _no_, Aubrey!" I cried. "I know that she is too desperately in love with Artie to care about anybody else. She is so fascinating I have but one fear, and that is that Artie will come under her sway again. If he does, Cary would never forgive it."
"You are barking up the wrong tree, my dear," said my husband. "It is far more likely that Artie has already gone too far with Flora for Cary to forgive, and that"s why she won"t see him."
At that, I tossed my head, for I felt that I knew how both Cary and Flora loved better than Aubrey did. Flattering myself, also, that I knew men pretty well, I had my doubts about the strength of Artie"s character. It takes real courage for a man to be true to one woman, if another woman has pitted her fascinations against him.
I intended to avoid Flora, but I found her lying in wait for me, and beckoning me from the doorway. I went in, and at once, in order to seem natural, remarked upon her red eyes. But it seems that that was exactly what she wanted me to do. The girl had no pride. She _wanted_ me to pity her.
"I"m ready to kill myself!" she cried. "I am perfectly sure that Artie has only been flirting with me and that some one has come between us.
You can"t want Cary to have him, or why did you invite me here, and arrange for me to see so much of him, and try so hard to bring us together? You are not two-faced like that, I hope?"
I was too bewildered to speak. Yet how could I answer her questions?
Before I left her, I was convinced that it was all my fault. I told Aubrey so.
"Nonsense!" he said, quite roughly for him. "I think Mary"s name for Flora is a good one. She is a little blister."
"No," I said, "she is not bad at heart. She is simply an impulsive, uncontrolled little animal, and more frank in her loves than most of us. That"s all."
I saw the Angel set his lips together as if he could say something if he only dared, but his way of managing me is to give me my head and let circ.u.mstances teach me. He never forces Nature"s hand.
Flora"s visit was to have terminated the next day, but, to Aubrey"s intense disgust and my utter rout, she begged for just three days more, and before I knew it I had consented. As I hurriedly left the room after consenting, I turned suddenly and met her gaze. Her eyes were a mere slit in her face, so narrowed and crafty they were. And the look she shot at me was a look of hatred.
Too bewildered by this curious girl"s inexplicable actions to try to unravel my emotions and come to a decision regarding her, I kept out of her way all I could. I was simply waiting--waiting impatiently for the three days to pa.s.s. I only hoped that Artie would not come again while she was here.
But, alas, the very next morning I was at the telephone when I heard Flora run to the door to let somebody in, and before I could speak I heard her say, in that surprised, complaining tone of hers, "Aren"t you going to kiss me?" and then--well, I got up and slammed the door so hard that the key fell out.
What a fool Artie was? What fools _all_ men were, not to be able to keep faith with a woman, and such a woman as Cary Farquhar! I rushed from the study into my room, and burst into a storm of tears, in the midst of which Aubrey found me.
"Poor little Faith! Poor, discouraged, little match-maker!" he said, smoothing my hair. But at that last I sat up and shook his hand off.
"It"s so _disgusting_ of him!" I stammered. "If you could have heard him when he was talking about Flora!"
"How do you know it was Artie who came in?" said Aubrey, gently.
I opened my mouth and simply stared at him. Then I went to the gla.s.s, smoothed my hair and straightened my belt.
"Where are you going?" asked my husband.
"I am going to _see_!" I exclaimed. "And if it _isn"t_ Artie--if she is kissing every man that comes into this house, I"ll--I"ll _kill_ her."
"What! You"ll kill her if you find that Artie is not the faithless wretch you were crying about?"
"Oh, Aubrey! How _can_ you?" I cried.
He tried to catch me as I flew past, but I eluded him, and started firmly down the long hall. But in spite of myself, my feet dragged.
What was Flora attempting? Did she hate me as her look implied? Did she love Artie as she declared, or was she simply endeavouring to get married, and so save herself from a life of teaching, which she openly detested?
I kept on, however, goaded by my righteous indignation. To my astonishment I found, not Artie, but the Also Ran, with Flora frankly in his arms.
They sprang up at my swift entrance, and the man had the grace to look furiously confused. Flora never even changed colour. I asked no questions. I simply stood before them in accusing silence. But my look was black and ominous. Flora gave one swift glance at my uncompromising att.i.tude, and then, with a modesty and grace and sweet appealing humility impossible to describe, she came a step toward me, holding out her arms and saying, plaintively: