"You don"t know Susie," said Ruth, with a queer, strained laugh.
"She"d rather die than break a promise."
"I must go," Susan now said. "Good-by."
"Come on, Ruth," cried Sam. "Let"s walk uptown with her."
"And you can help match the silk," said Ruth.
"Not for me," replied young Wright. Then to Susan, "What"ve _you_ got to do? Maybe it"s something I could help at."
"No. It"s for Uncle George and me."
"Well, I"ll go as far as the store. Then--we"ll see."
They were now in the business part of Main Street, were at Wilson"s dry goods store. "You might find it here," suggested the innocent Susan to her cousin.
Ruth colored, veiled her eyes to hide their flash. "I"ve got to go to the store first--to get some money," she hastily improvised.
Sam had been walking between the two girls. He now changed to the outside and, so, put himself next Susan alone, put Susan between him and Ruth. The maneuver seemed to be a mere politeness, but Ruth knew better. What fate had intended as her lucky day was being changed into unlucky by this cousin of hers.
Ruth walked sullenly along, hot tears in her eyes and a choke in her throat, as she listened to Sam"s flatterings of her cousin, and to Susan"s laughing, delighted replies. She tried to gather herself together, to think up something funny or at least interesting with which to break into the _tete-a-tete_ and draw Sam to herself. She could think nothing but envious, hateful thoughts. At the doors of Warham and Company, wholesale and retail grocers, the three halted.
"I guess I"ll go to Vandermark"s," said Ruth. "I really don"t need money. Come on, Sam."
"No--I"m going back home. I ought to see Lottie and father. My, but it"s dull in this town!"
"Well, so long," said Susan. She nodded, sparkling of hair and skin and eyes, and went into the store.
Sam and Ruth watched her as she walked down the broad aisle between the counters. From the store came a mingling of odors of fruit, of spices, of freshly ground coffee. "Susan"s an awful pretty girl, isn"t she?" declared Sam with rude enthusiasm.
"Indeed she is," replied Ruth as heartily--and with an honest if discouraged effort to feel enthusiastic.
"What a figure! And she has such a good walk. Most women walk horribly."
"Come on to Vandermark"s with me and I"ll stroll back with you,"
offered Ruth. Sam was still gazing into the store where, far to the rear, Susan could be seen; the graceful head, the gently swelling bust, the soft lines of the white dress, the pretty ankles revealed by the short skirt--there was, indeed, a profile worth a man"s looking at on a fine June day. Ruth"s eyes were upon Sam, handsome, dressed in the Eastern fashion, an ideal lover. "Come on, Sam," urged Ruth.
"No, thanks," he replied absently. "I"ll go back. Good luck!"
And not glancing at her, he lifted his straw hat with its band of Yale blue and set out.
Ruth moved slowly and disconsolately in the opposite direction.
She was ashamed of her thoughts; but shame never yet withheld anybody from being human in thought. As she turned to enter Vandermark"s she glanced down the street. There was Sam, returned and going into her father"s store. She hesitated, could devise no plan of action, hurried into the dry goods store.
Sinclair, the head salesman and the beau of Sutherland, was an especial friend of hers. The tall, slender, hungry-looking young man, devoured with ambition for speedy wealth, had no mind to neglect so easy an aid to that ambition as nature gave him in making him a lady-charmer. He had resolved to marry either Lottie Wright or Ruth Warham--Ruth preferred, because, while Lottie would have many times more money, her skin made her a stiff dose for a young man brought up to the American tradition that the face is the woman. But that morning Sinclair exerted his charms in vain. Ruth was in a hurry, was distinctly rude, cut short what in other circ.u.mstances would have been a prolonged and delightful flirtation by tossing the sample on the counter and asking him to do the matching for her and to send the silk right away. Which said, she fairly bolted from the store.
She arrived barely in time. Young Wright was issuing from Warham and Company. He smiled friendly enough, but Ruth knew where his thoughts were. "Get what you wanted?" inquired he, and went on to explain: "I came back to find out if you and Susie were to be at home this evening. Thought I"d call."
Ruth paled with angry dismay. She was going to a party at the Sinclairs"--one to which Susan was not invited. "Aren"t you going to Sinclairs"?" said she.
"I was. But I thought I"d rather call. Perhaps I"ll go there later."
He was coming to call on Susan! All the way down Main Street to the Wright place Ruth fought against her mood of angry and depressed silence, tried to make the best of her chance to impress Sam. But Sam was absent and humiliatingly near to curt.
He halted at his father"s gate. She halted also, searched the grounds with anxious eyes for sign of Lottie that would give her the excuse for entering.
"So long," said Sam.
"Do come to Sinclairs" early. You always did dance so well."
"Oh, dancing bores me," said the blase Soph.o.m.ore. "But I"ll be round before the shindy"s over. I"ve got to take Lot home."
He lifted the hat again with what both he and Ruth regarded as a gesture of most elegant carelessness. Ruth strolled reluctantly on, feeling as if her toilet had been splashed or crushed. As she entered the front door her mother, in a wrapper and curl papers, appeared at the head of the stairs. "Why!" cried she. "Where"s the silk? It"s for your dress tonight, you know."
"It"ll be along," was Ruth"s answer, her tone dreary, her lip quivering. "I met Sam Wright."
"Oh!" exclaimed her mother. "He"s back, is he?"
Ruth did not reply. She came on up the stairs, went into the sitting-room--the room where Doctor Stevens seventeen years before had torn the baby Susan from the very claws of death. She flung herself down, buried her head in her arms upon that same table. She burst into a storm of tears.
"Why, dearie dear," cried her mother, "whatever is the matter?"
"It"s wicked and hateful," sobbed the girl, "but---- Oh, mamma, I _hate_ Susan! She was along, and Sam hardly noticed me, and he"s coming here this evening to call."
"But you"ll be at Sinclairs"!" exclaimed Mrs. Warham.
"Not Susan," sobbed Ruth. "He wants to see only her."
The members of the Second Presbyterian Church, of which f.a.n.n.y Warham was about the most exemplary and a.s.siduous female member, would hardly have recognized the face encircled by that triple row of curl-papered locks, shinily plastered with quince-seed liquor. She was at woman"s second critical age, and the strange emotions working in her mind--of whose disorder no one had an inkling--were upon the surface now. She ventured this freedom of facial expression because her daughter"s face was hid. She did not speak. She laid a tender defending hand for an instant upon her daughter"s shoulder--like the caress of love and encouragement the lioness gives her cub as she is about to give battle for it. Then she left the room. She did not know what to do, but she knew she must and would do something.
CHAPTER III
THE telephone was downstairs, in the rear end of the hall which divided the lower floor into two equal parts. But hardly had Mrs. Warham given the Sinclairs" number to the exchange girl when Ruth called from the head of the stairs:
"What"re you doing there, mamma?"
"I"ll tell Mrs. Sinclair you"re sick and can"t come. Then I"ll send Susan in your place."
"Don"t!" cried Ruth, in an agitated, angry voice. "Ring off--quick!"
"Now, Ruth, let me----"
"Ring off!" ordered Ruth. "You mustn"t do that. You"ll have the whole town talking about how I"m throwing myself at Sam"s head--and that I"m jealous of Susan."
Mrs. Warham said, "Never mind" into the telephone sender and hung up the receiver. She was frightened, but not convinced.
Hers was a slow, old-fashioned mind, and to it the scheme it had worked out seemed a model of skillful duplicity. But Ruth, of the younger and subtler generation, realized instantly how transparent the thing was. Mrs. Warham was abashed but not angered by her daughter"s curt contempt.
"It"s the only way I can think of," said she. "And I still don"t see----"