Barbara was tearfully angry when her father came into the room, but as he began to remonstrate with her the tears disappeared and left her at white heat.
"Frankly, father, you don"t understand matters," she said with slow emphasis; "I wish you to know now that if Montgomery Brewster calls again, I shall not see him."
"If that is your point of view, Barbara, I wish you to know mine." The Colonel rose and stood over her, everything forgotten but the rage that went so deep that it left the surface calm. Throwing aside his promise to Brewster, he told Barbara with dramatic simplicity the story of the rescue of the bank. "You see," he added, "if it had not been for that open-hearted boy we would now be ruined. Instead of giving cotillons, you might be giving music lessons. Montgomery Brewster will always be welcome in this house and you will see that my wishes are respected. Do you understand?"
"Perfectly," Barbara answered in a still voice. "As your friend I shall try to be civil to him."
The Colonel was not satisfied with so cold-blooded an acquiescence, but he wisely retired from the field. He left the girl silent and crushed, but with a gleam in her eyes that was not altogether to be concealed.
The story had touched her more deeply than she would willingly confess.
It was something to know that Monty Brewster could do a thing like that, and would do it for her. The exultant smile which it brought to her lips could only be made to disappear by reminding herself sharply of his recent arrogance. Her anger, she found, was a plant which needed careful cultivation.
It was in a somewhat chastened mood that she started a few days later for a dinner at the DeMille"s. As she entered in her sweeping golden gown the sight of Monty Brewster at the other end of the room gave her a flutter at the heart. But it was an agitation that was very carefully concealed. Brewster was certainly unconscious of it. To him the position of guest was like a disguise and he was pleased at the prospect of letting himself go under the mask without responsibility.
But it took on a different color when the butler handed him a card which signified that he was to take Miss Drew in to dinner. Hastily seeking out the hostess he endeavored to convey to her the impossibility of the situation.
"I hope you won"t misunderstand me," he said. "But is it too late to change my place at the table?"
"It isn"t conventional, I know, Monty. Society"s chief aim is to separate engaged couples at dinner," said Mrs. Dan with a laugh. "It would be positively compromising if a man and his wife sat together."
Dinner was announced before Monty could utter another word, and as she led him over to Barbara she said, "Behold a generous hostess who gives up the best man in the crowd so that he and some one else may have a happy time. I leave it to you, Barbara, if that isn"t the test of friendship."
For a moment the two riveted their eyes on the floor. Then the humor of the situation came to Monty.
"I did not know that we were supposed to do Gibson tableaux to-night,"
he said drily as he proffered his arm.
"I don"t understand," and Barbara"s curiosity overcame her determination not to speak.
"Don"t you remember the picture of the man who was called upon to take his late fiancee out to dinner?"
The awful silence with which this remark was received put an end to further efforts at humor.
The dinner was probably the most painful experience in their lives.
Barbara had come to it softened and ready to meet him half way. The right kind of humility in Monty would have found her plastic. But she had very definite and rigid ideas of his duty in the premises. And Monty was too simple minded to seem to suffer, and much too flippant to understand. It was plain to each that the other did not expect to talk, but they both realized that they owed a duty to appearances and to their hostess. Through two courses, at least, there was dead silence between them. It seemed as though every eye in the room were on them and every mind were speculating. At last, in sheer desperation, Barbara turned to him with the first smile he had seen on her face in days.
There was no smile in her eyes, however, and Monty understood.
"We might at least give out the impression that we are friends," she said quietly.
"More easily said than done," he responded gloomily.
"They are all looking at us and wondering."
"I don"t blame them."
"We owe something to Mrs. Dan, I think."
"I know."
Barbara uttered some inanity whenever she caught any one looking in their direction, but Brewster seemed not to hear. At length he cut short some remark of hers about the weather.
"What nonsense this is, Barbara," he said. "With any one else I would chuck the whole game, but with you it is different. I don"t know what I have done, but I am sorry. I hope you"ll forgive me."
"Your a.s.surance is amusing, to say the least."
"But I am sure. I know this quarrel is something we"ll laugh over. You keep forgetting that we are going to be married some day."
A new light came into Barbara"s eyes. "You forget that my consent may be necessary," she said.
"You will be perfectly willing when the time comes. I am still in the fight and eventually you will come to my way of thinking."
"Oh! I see it now," said Barbara, and her blood was up. "You mean to force me to it. What you did for father--"
Brewster glowered at her, thinking that he had misunderstood. "What do you mean?" he said.
"He has told me all about that wretched bank business. But poor father thought you quite disinterested. He did not see the little game behind your melodrama. He would have torn up your check on the instant if he had suspected you were trying to buy his daughter."
"Does your father believe that?" asked Brewster.
"No, but I see it all now. His persistence and yours--you were not slow to grasp the opportunity offered."
"Stop, Miss Drew," Monty commanded. His voice had changed and she had never before seen that look in his eyes. "You need have no fear that I will trouble you again."
CHAPTER XV
THE CUT DIRECT
A typographical error in one of the papers caused no end of amus.e.m.e.nt to every one except Monty and Miss Drew. The headlines had announced "Magnificent ball to be given Miss Drew by her Finance," and the "Little Sons of the Rich" wondered why Monty did not see the humor of it.
"He has too bad an attack to see anything but the lady," said Harrison one evening when the "Sons" were gathered for an old-time supper party.
"It"s always the way," commented the philosophical Bragdon, "When you lose your heart your sense of humor goes too. Engaged couples couldn"t do such ridiculous stunts if they had the least particle of it left."
"Well, if Monty Brewster is still in love with Miss Drew he takes a mighty poor way of showing it." "Subway" Smith"s remark fell like a bombsh.e.l.l. The thought had come to every one, but no one had been given the courage to utter it. For them Brewster"s silence on the subject since the DeMille dinner seemed to have something ominous behind it.
"It"s probably only a lovers" quarrel," said Bragdon. But further comment was cut short by the entrance of Monty himself, and they took their places at the table.
Before the evening came to an end they were in possession of many astonishing details in connection with the coming ball. Monty did not say that it was to be given for Miss Drew and her name was conspicuously absent from his descriptions. As he unfolded his plans even the "Little Sons," who were imaginative by instinct and reckless on principle, could not be quite acquiescent.
"Nopper" Harrison solemnly expressed the opinion that the ball would cost Brewster at least $125,000. The "Little Sons" looked at one another in consternation, while Brewster"s indifference expressed itself in an unflattering comment upon his friend"s vulgarity. "Good Lord, Nopper," he added, "you would speculate about the price of gloves for your wedding."
Harrison resented the taunt. "It would be much less vulgar to do that, Monty, saving your presence, than to force your millions down every one"s throat."
"Well, they swallow them, I"ve noticed," retorted Brewster, "as though they were chocolates."
Pettingill interrupted grandiloquently. "My friends and gentlemen!"