"I"m warning you now."
She met his eyes with a puzzled frown.
"I"ve seen a lot of men start right, but they don"t stay right. Why don"t they?"
"But a lot of them do," he answered.
"And they are the kind that just stay. I hate that kind. I hate people who just stay. That"s why I hate myself sometimes."
He looked up at her quickly. It was the first indication he had that she was not continually in an unbroken state of calm content. He caught her brown eyes grown suddenly full, as if they themselves had been startled by the unexpected exclamation.
"What"s that you said?" he demanded.
She tried to laugh, but she was still too disconcerted to make it a successful effort. She was not often goaded into as intimate a confession as this.
"It isn"t worth repeating," she answered uneasily.
"You said you hated yourself sometimes."
"The steak is very, very good," she answered, smiling.
"Then you aren"t hating yourself now?"
"No, no," she replied quickly. "It"s only when I get serious and--please don"t let"s be serious."
The rest of the dinner was very satisfactory, for he left her nothing to do but sit back and enjoy herself. And he made her laugh, sharing with him his laughter. It was half-past ten when they arose and went out upon the street. There she kept right on forgetting. It was not until she stood in her room, half-undressed, that she remembered she had not told Pendleton that to-night was positively to bring to an end this impossible friendship.
CHAPTER XII
A SOCIAL WIDOW
With the approach of the holiday season, when pretty nearly every one comes back to town, Frances found her engagements multiplying so rapidly that it required a good deal of tact and not a little arithmetic to keep them from conflicting. In this emergency, when she really needed Don, not only was he of no practical help, but he further embarra.s.sed her by announcing a blanket refusal of all afternoon engagements. This placed her in the embarra.s.sing position of being obliged to go alone and then apologize for him.
"Poor Don is in business now," was her stock explanation.
She was irritated with Don for having placed her in this position. In return for having surrendered to him certain privileges, she had expected him to fulfill certain obligations. If she had promised to allow him to serve exclusively as her social partner, then he should have been at all times available. He had no right to leave her a social widow--even when he could not help it. As far as the afternoons were concerned, the poor boy could not help it--she knew that; but, even so, why should her winter be broken up by what some one else could not help?
She had given her consent to Don, not to a business man. As Don he had been delightful. No girl could ask to have a more attentive and thoughtful fiance than he had been. He allowed her to make all his engagements for him, and he never failed her. He was the only man she knew who could sit through a tea without appearing either silly or bored. And he was nice--but not too nice--to all her girl friends, so that most of them were jealous of her. Decidedly, she had had nothing to complain of.
And she had not complained, even when he announced that he was penniless. This did not affect her feeling toward Don himself. It was something of a nuisance, but, after all, a matter of no great consequence. She had no doubt he could make all the money he wanted, just as her father had done.
But of late it had been increasingly difficult to persuade him, on account of business, to fulfill even his evening engagements. He was constantly reminding her of bonds and things that he must study. Well, if it was necessary for him to study bonds and things, he should find some way of doing it that would not interfere with her plans.
The climax came when he asked to be excused from the Moore cotillion because he had three other dances for that week.
"You see," he explained, "Farnsworth is going to let me go out and sell as soon as I"m fit, and so I"m putting in a lot of extra time."
"Who is Farnsworth?" she inquired.
"Why, he"s the general manager. I"ve told you about him."
"I remember now. But, Don dear, you aren"t going to _sell_ things?"
"You bet I am," he answered enthusiastically. "All I"m waiting for is a chance."
"But what do you sell?" she inquired.
"Investment securities."
He seemed rather pleased that she was showing so much interest.
"You see, the house buys a batch of securities wholesale and then sells them at retail--just as a grocer does."
"Don!"
"It"s the same thing," he nodded.
"Then I should call it anything but an attractive occupation."
"That"s because you don"t understand. You see, here"s a man with some extra money to invest. Now, when you go to him, maybe he has something else in mind to do with that money. What you have to do--"
"Please don"t go into details, Don," she interrupted. "You know I wouldn"t understand."
"If you"d just let me explain once," he urged.
"It would only irritate me," she warned. "I"m sure it would only furnish you with another reason why you shouldn"t go about as much as you do."
"It would," he agreed. "That"s why I want to make it clear. Don"t you see that if I keep at this for a few years--"
"Years?" she gasped.
"Well, until I get my ten thousand."
"But I thought you were planning to have that by next fall at the latest."
"I"m going to try," he answered. "I"m going to try hard. But, somehow, it doesn"t look as easy as it did before I started. I didn"t understand what a man has to know before he"s worth all that money."
"I"m sure I don"t find ten thousand to be very much," she observed.
"Perhaps it isn"t much to spend," he admitted, "but it"s a whole lot to earn. I know a bunch of men who don"t earn it."
"Then they must be very stupid."
"No; but somehow dollars look bigger downtown than they do uptown.