"Won"t you congratulate me? We are engaged."
I was struck dumb--that is, I would have been struck dumb, if I had not been rendered not only speechless, but unable to move by the actions of the man. Entirely unmindful of my presence, he sprang toward Flora, stammering, brokenly:
"Do you mean it, dear? Have you decided already? You said six months!
You are sure you mean it?"
Then, not seeing the angry colour flame into Flora"s pale, calm face, he turned to me, saying, brokenly:
"Oh, Mrs. Jardine! She has teased me so! I never dreamed she would decide so quickly. And I--you will forgive me! but I love her so!"
I looked away from his twitching face to Flora, and mentally resolved never to call him an Also Ran again. He did not deserve it. I am seldom sarcastic, but I knew Flora would understand.
"Flora," I said, distinctly, "you are to be congratulated."
Then I turned and left them.
The very day that Flora left, Cary came back to me.
"Well," she said, tentatively, "what do you think of her?"
"Well," I answered, cautiously, "I don"t know."
Cary looked at me in disgust.
"Your loyalty amounts to nothing short of blindness and stupidity," she remarked, severely. "As for me, I am going to look at the nest the viper has left."
So saying, she got up and went into the blue room, Aubrey and I meekly following.
Pinned to the pillow was a note directed to me. Cary unpinned and handed it to me.
"Cleverest and best of women," it began, "Many thanks for your delightful hospitality. I have enjoyed it to the full--far more, indeed, than you know. Look under the mattress of this bed and you will understand."
We tore the bed to pieces without speaking. Then Aubrey and Cary looked at each other and laughed.
"_Now_ will you believe," said Cary.
There were cigarette-boxes full of nothing but b.u.t.ts and ashes. There were three of my low-cut bodices. There were some of Aubrey"s ties and a number of my best handkerchiefs.
I said nothing. I simply stared.
"We all knew of these things, Faith dear," said Aubrey, "but even if you had caught her wearing your clothes or smoking, we knew she would lie out of it, so we waited."
"We knew she hated you so that she couldn"t help telling you," added Cary.
"Hated me?" I murmured. "What for?"
Cary blushed furiously, and looked at Aubrey.
"Has Ar-- Have you--" I stammered, eagerly.
Cary nodded and Aubrey looked wise. Then Cary and I rushed for each other.
While we still had our arms around each other crying for joy, Mary appeared at the door with her ap.r.o.n filled with the neat little jars of jellies and marmalades I had got for Flora"s breakfasts. They had not been opened. Mary regarded me with grim but whimsical defiance.
"The little blister never got a blamed one of "em, Missis!" she said.
CHAPTER VII
THE PRICE OF QUIET
Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie were among our frequent visitors in the new apartment. Jimmie can never realize that I am really married, and in view of our manifold travelling experiences together he regards the Angel with an eye in which sympathy and apprehension are mingled.
His congratulations at the wedding were unique. "I"d like to congratulate you, old man," he said, wringing the Angel"s hand, "but honestly I think you are up against it."
To me at their first call he said:
"What will you do with such a man--you, who have gone sc.r.a.pping through life, browbeating gentle souls like myself into giving you your own way on every point, and letting you ride rough-shod over us without a protest? _He_ requires consideration and tact and a degree of courtesy--none of which you possess. And you can"t drag him away from his writing to go to the morgue or a p.a.w.n-shop with you the way you did me in Europe. And most of all he must have quiet. Gee whiz! There will be hours together when you must hold your tongue. You"ll die!"
"No, I won"t," I declared. "You don"t know him. He is an Angel." And with that the argument closed, for Jimmie went off into such a fit of laughter that he choked, and his wife came in a fright to find me pounding him on the back with unnecessary force.
"But why," said Jimmie, when order had been restored, "did you take an apartment, when Aubrey"s chief requirement is absence of noise!
Furthermore, why do you live in New York, that city which reigns supreme in its acc.u.mulation of unnecessary bedlam?"
"Ah, we have thought of all those things," I said, proudly. "First, we avoided a street paved with cobblestones. Second, we took the top floor. Third, there are no houses opposite--only the Park."
"But best of all," said the Angel, speaking for the first time, as Jimmie noted, "it is in the lease that no children are allowed, for children, after all, are the most noise-producing animals which exist.
So if an apartment can be noise-proof--"
"Exactly," cut in Jimmie. "If!"
"That"s what I say--if it can," said the Angel, "this one should prove so. Faith and I certainly took sufficient pains in selecting it."
"Well, I don"t want to discourage you," said Jimmie, and then, after the manner of those who begin their sentences in that way, he proceeded to discourage us in every sort of ingenious fashion which lay at his command. Verily, friends are invaluable in domestic crises!
Nevertheless, his gloomy prophecies disturbed us. We tried to make light of our fears--to pooh-pooh them--to pretend a scorn for Jimmie"s opinions, which in secret we were far from feeling, for the fact remained that the Jimmies were experienced and we were not. "Living in an apartment," Jimmie had declared, "is like driving. You may have perfect control over your own horse, but you have constantly to fear the bad driving of other people."
These words kept ringing in our ears. We never forgot for a moment that there were people under us. We crept in gently if a supper after the theatre kept us out until two in the morning. We never allowed the piano to be played after ten in the evening nor before breakfast. We gave up the loved society of our dog, and boarded him in the country because dogs, cats, and parrots were not allowed.
But day by day we found that each one of these self-inflicted maxims was being violated by all the other residents. Singing popular songs, a pianola, half a dozen fox terriers, laughing and shouting good nights in the corridors kept us awake half the night, and worst of all, what we patiently submitted to as visitors with children, we, to our horror, discovered were residents with children, and children of the most detested sort at that. Five of these hyenas in human form lived below us. Their parents were of the easy-going sort. They had all come from a plantation in Virginia, and they had brought their plantation manners with them.
Now, ordinary children are bad enough, and even well-trained ones at that, in the matter of noise, but the noises made by the Gottlieb children were something too appalling to be called by the plain, ordinary word. They had never learned to close a door. They slammed it, and every cup and saucer on our floor danced in reply. When their mother wanted them, she never thought of going to the room they were in to speak to them. She sat still and called. They yelled back defiant negatives or whining questions, and then the negro nurse was sent, and she hauled them in by one arm, their legs dragging rebelliously on the floor and their other arm clutching wildly at pillars or furniture to delay their reluctant progress.
They had a piano, and all five of them took piano lessons. Out of the kindness of their hearts they invited the three children who lived opposite them on the same floor to practise on their piano, so that from seven in the morning until nine at night we were treated to five-finger exercises and scales. Their favourite diversion was a game which consisted of the entire eight racing through their apartment, jumping the nursery bed, and landing against the wall beyond. They had hardwood floors and no rugs.
And the Angel must have quiet in which to write!