My heart was skipping every second beat by that time, and Miss Julia stood by the pantry door, her head back and her eyes almost closed, enjoying every minute of it. If Arabella hadn"t made a diversion just then I think I"d have fainted.
She"d pulled the newspaper and the tights off the table and was running around the room with them, one leg in her mouth.
"Stop it, Arabella!" said Miss Julia, and took the tights from her.
"Yours?" she asked, with her eyebrows raised.
"No--yes," I answered.
"I"d never have suspected you of them!" she remarked. "Hardly sheer enough to pull through a finger ring, are they?" She held them up and gazed at them meditatively. "That"s one thing I draw the line at. On the boards, you know--never have worn "em and never will. They"re not modest, to my mind,--and, anyhow, I"m too fat!"
Mr. Sam and his wife came in at that moment, Mr. Sam carrying a bottle of wine for the shelter-house, wrapped in a paper, and two cans of something or other. He was too busy trying to make the bottle look like something else--which a good many people have tried and failed at--to notice what Miss Summers was doing, and she had Miss Cobb"s protectors stuffed in her m.u.f.f and was standing very dignified in front of the fire by the time they"d shaken off the snow.
"Good morning!" she said.
"Morning!" said Mr. Sam, hanging up his overcoat with one hand, and trying to put the bottle in one of the pockets with the other. Mrs. Sam didn"t look at her.
"Good morning, Mrs. Van Alstyne!" Miss Summers almost threw it at her.
"I spoke to you before; I guess you didn"t hear me."
"Oh, yes, I heard you," answered Mrs. Sam, and turned her back on her.
Give me a little light-haired woman for sheer devilishness!
I"d expected to see Miss Summers fly to pieces with rage, but she stared at Mrs. Sam"s back, and after a minute she laughed.
"I see!" she remarked slowly. "You"re the sister, aren"t you?"
Mr. Sam had given up trying to hide the bottle and now he set it on the floor with a thump and came over to the fire.
"It"s--you see, the situation is embarra.s.sing," he began. "If we had had any idea--"
"I might have been still in the Finleyville hotel!" she finished for him. "Awful thought, isn"t it?"
"Under the circ.u.mstances," went on Mr. Sam, nervously, "don"t you think it would be--er--better form if er--under the circ.u.mstances--"
"I"m thinking of my circ.u.mstances," she put in, good-naturedly. "If you imagine that six weeks of one-night stands has left me anything but a rural wardrobe and a box of dog biscuit for Arabella, you"re pretty well mistaken. I haven"t even a decent costume. All we had left after the sheriff got through was some gra.s.s mats, a checked sunbonnet and a pump."
"Minnie," Mrs. Sam said coldly, "that little beast of a dog is trying to drink out of the spring!"
I caught her in time and gave her a good slapping. When I looked up Miss Summers was glaring down at me over the rail.
"Just what do you mean by hitting my dog?" she demanded. It was the first time I"d seen her angry.
"Just what I appeared to mean," I answered. "If you want to take it as a love pat, you may." And I stalked to the door and threw the creature out into the snow. It was the first false step that day; if I"d known what putting that dog out meant--! "I don"t allow dogs here," I said, and shut the door.
Miss Summers was furious; she turned and stared at Mrs. Sam, who was smiling at the fire.
"Let Arabella in," she said to me in an undertone, "or I"ll open the pantry door!"
"Open the door!" I retorted. I was half hysterical, but it was no time to weaken. She looked me straight in the eye for fully ten seconds; then, to my surprise, she winked at me. But when she turned on Mr. Sam she was cold rage again and nothing else.
"I am not going to leave, if that is what you are about to suggest," she said. "I"ve been trying to see d.i.c.ky Carter the last ten days, and I"ll stay here until I see him."
"It"s a delicate situation--"
"Delicate!" she snapped. "It"s indelicate it"s indecent, that"s what it is. Didn"t I get my clothes, and weren"t we to have been married by the Reverend Dwight Johnstone, out in Salem, Ohio? And didn"t he go out there and have old Johnstone marry him to somebody else? The wretch! If I ever see him--"
A gla.s.s dropped in the pantry and smashed, but n.o.body paid any attention.
"Oh, I"m not going until he comes!" she continued. "I"ll stay right here, and I"ll have what"s coming to me or I"ll know the reason why.
Don"t forget for a minute that I know why Mr. Pierce is here, and that I can spoil the little game by calling the extra ace, if I want to."
"You"re forgetting one thing," Mrs. Sam said, facing her for the first time, "if you call the game, my brother is worth exactly what clothes he happens to be wearing at the moment and nothing else. He hasn"t a penny of his own."
"I don"t believe it," she sniffed. "Look at the things he gave me!"
"Yes. I"ve already had the bills," said Mr. Sam.
She whirled and looked at him, and then she threw back her head and laughed.
"You!" she said. "Why, bless my soul! All the expense of a double life and none of its advantages!"
She went out on that, still laughing, leaving Mrs. Sam scarlet with rage, and when she was safely gone I brought Mr. d.i.c.k out to the fire.
He was so limp he could hardly walk, and it took three gla.s.ses of the wine and all Mr. Sam could do to start him back to the shelter-house.
His sister would not speak to him.
Mike went to Mr. Pierce that day and asked for a raise of salary.
He did not get it. Perhaps, as things have turned out, it was for the best, but it is strange to think how different things would have been if he"d been given it. He was sent up later, of course, for six months for malicious mischief, but by that time the damage was done.
CHAPTER XX
EVERY DOG HAS HIS DAY
That was on a Sat.u.r.day morning. During the golf season Sat.u.r.day is always a busy day with us, with the husbands coming up for over Sunday, and trying to get in all the golf, baths and spring water they can in forty-eight hours. But in the winter Sat.u.r.day is the same as any, other day.
It had stopped snowing and the sun was shining, although it was so cold that the snow blew like powder. By eleven o"clock every one who could walk had come to the spring-house. Even Mr. Jennings came down in a wheeled chair, and Senator Biggs, still looking a sort of gra.s.s-green and keeping his eyes off me, came and sat in a corner, with a book called Fast versus Feast held so that every one could see.
There were bridge tables going, and five hundred, and a group around the slot-machine, while the crocheters formed a crowd by themselves, exchanging gossip and new st.i.tches.
About twelve o"clock Mr. Thoburn came in, and as he opened the door, in leaped Arabella. The women made a fuss over the creature and cuddled her, and when I tried to put her out everybody objected. So she stayed, and Miss Summers put her through a lot of tricks, while the men crowded around. As I said before, Miss Summers was a first favorite with the men.
Mr. von Inwald and Miss Patty came in just then and stood watching.
"And now," said Mr. von Inwald, "I propose, as a reward to Miss Arabella, a gla.s.s of this wonderful water. Minnie, a gla.s.s of water for Arabella!"