Winifred lied angelically. "Cornelia was telling me how famously you and Willie get along. You"re so congenial."
Persis recognized the intended obloquy, and beamed in answer: "Willie is a duck of a husband. Why don"t you try marriage?"
This was so straight a lunge that Winifred slid in a sly _riposte_:
"Do you ever see that li"l snojer man of yours any more?"
"Li"l snojer man? Have I one?" said Persis, white-mouthed with fear at the directness of the attack, and at the simultaneous tingle of the door-bell. She tried to check Crofts, calling to him as he moved to the door. But he did not hear.
Mrs. Neff was enjoying the rare treat of seeing Persis discomfited, ill at ease. She joined the onset.
"She means Captain Forbes."
"Yes--that"s the one," Winifred smiled. "See him often?"
"Oh, once in a long while," Persis confessed. "Why?"
"I just wondered. He used to be so devoted to you."
"Oh, that was ages ago," Persis laughed. And then Crofts came in with his little salver. Persis regarded it with as much dread as if it bore the head of John the Baptist instead of a tiny white card.
Crofts was so proud of remembering his instructions that he murmured, with a senile smile: "You told me you were at home to him, ma"am."
Persis read the name, and it danced before her eyes, fantastically. In the phrase of the prize-fighters, "they had her going." It was all so simple and foolish, yet so naggingly annoying, that she was utterly nonplussed. She stood a moment snapping the card in her fingers. Then she had a mad inspiration. She smiled stupidly between Mrs. Neff and Winifred and said:
"It"s my--my lawyer. I--I"ll go to the door and see him."
"But I asked him to come up!" Crofts protested in a doddering collapse, and vanished like a ghost at c.o.c.kcrow.
Forbes appeared at the door. He saw Persis, and there was no mistaking the love in his eyes. Then he saw Winifred and Mrs. Neff, and there was no mistaking his confusion, though he tried to put on a smile of delight at the sight of them.
Mrs. Neff grinned with rapturous malice, and bewildered Forbes utterly by asking three ironical questions and not staying for an answer:
"Changed your profession, Captain Forbes? A lawyer now? Specialty divorces?"
Then she nodded to Winifred, and they made their way out, ignoring Persis" outstretched hand.
CHAPTER LXV
Forbes stared after the two women in complete perplexity. He turned to Persis to ask stupidly:
"What did they mean, Persis?"
Persis had lost almost every whit of self-control. She had an insane desire to scream, to hide somewhere and go into hysterics. She sank into a chair and mumbled:
"They know everything."
"Good G.o.d, it"s not possible! Was it because I came in as I did?"
"Yes, but it wasn"t your fault. It was mine and Crofts"."
He made to take her in his arms, but she warned him where he was with a gesture. He sank into a chair, groaning:
"I"d rather cut off my right hand than bring suspicion on you, Persis."
Staring idly ahead of her, Persis maundered in a hollow voice, "And they refused my hand!" The lash of this remembered insult brought her to her feet with a snarl. "They refused my hand! Oh, it"s all over now. A war extra couldn"t spread the scandal faster than those two women. But I suppose it had to come some day. And we thought we were so discreet!"
She laughed bitterly, for the luxury of self-contempt was alkali upon her tongue. But Forbes could only sigh, "How you must hate me!"
"How much I love you!" she whispered. Even in her panic she had no reproach for the author of her defeat; and as she paced the floor she touched his cheek with a pa.s.sing caress.
She walked to the window idly and stared out into the street. She fell back with a gasp. "Oh, they saw me!--they saw me!"
"Who?--who saw you?"
"Alice Neff and Stowe Webb just drove up. They waved to me. They"re coming here. Good Lord of heaven, at such a time!"
The door-bell rang in confirmation, and Crofts shuffled down the hall.
He glanced timidly at Persis, and she nodded her head.
"You can"t see them now," Forbes protested; "tell the man not to let them in."
"It wouldn"t do any good. Besides, they saw me. Now of all times I must keep up a bold front. Wait in the library, Harvey. I"ll get rid of them as soon as I can." He was hardly gone before Alice came running, crying, "Oh, here you are," and seizing the hand that Persis thrust at her absent-mindedly. Stowe Webb seized her other hand and clung to it as Alice rattled on: "We had the narrowest escape! Just as our taxi drew up to your door my awful mother and Winifred drove away--without seeing us!"
"And do you poor children still have to meet in secret, too?" Persis asked with a dreary sympathy.
"Indeed we have to," Webb replied, "and always shall. Her mother won"t let me in the house! And I am doing a little better now--two thousand a year. But Alice"s mother still calls me a pauper. Our only hope is a runaway marriage. But Alice always remembers what you told her. I wish you could advise her differently now, for we are hopelessly unhappy. We couldn"t be more miserable even if we were married."
Alice corroborated this theory. "It"s simply terrible the trials we are put to now. But you made it so vivid to me--the other side of it--the sordidness, the poverty, the stairs, the bills; how I should grow plain, and begin to nag; how I should ruin Stowe"s career. Oh, why do we women always seem to be getting in the way of the careers of the men we love!
Why can"t we help them?"
"We can, Alice, we can!" Persis averred, with a sudden energy. "If we begin the right way, if our love is the right sort, if we don"t wait too long. Marry him, Alice."
"But you said," Alice reminded her, "that I should miss all the comforts that make life worth while." And Persis answered with a solemnity that was unwonted in her:
"If you don"t marry the one you love you miss everything that makes life worth while. If you don"t sacrifice everything that love asks, why, love robs you of all your delight in the things you have kept. Your mother will forgive you, Alice. But what if she doesn"t? It is better to lack the forgiveness of some one else--of every one else!--than to feel that you can never, never forgive yourself. That is the most horrible thing in life, not to forgive yourself."
"But you talk so differently now!" Alice interposed; and Persis explained it dismally enough:
"I know more now than I did then."
Alice went into her arms, eager to be coerced and decided for: "And you really think it is my duty to go?"
"A woman"s first duty is to her love," Persis cried. "Go, marry the boy, Alice, and be true to him--oh, be true to him!--always!