II
They both wakened early. Freda found the taste of stale adventure in her mind a little flat and disagreeable. There were a number of things to be done. Margaret telephoned briefly to the Brownley house, left word with a servant that Miss Thorstad had spent the night with her.
“I’ll go up there after we have some breakfast,” she said to Freda, “and get you some clothes. Then I think you’d better stay here with me. I’ll ask the landlady to put an extra cot in here and we can be comfortable for a few days. And please don’t talk of inconvenience”—she forestalled Freda’s objections with her smile—“I’ll love to have company. If you stay in town we’ll see if you can’t get a place of your own in the building here. Lots of apartments have a vacant room to let.”
She was preparing breakfast with Freda’s help and the younger girl’s spirits were rising steadily even though the thought of an interview with Barbara remained dragging. It was great fun for Freda—the freedom of this tiny apartment with its bed already made into a daytime couch, the eggs cooking over a little electric grill on the table and the table set with a scanty supply of dishes—two tall glasses of milk, rolls and marmalade.
“It’s so nice, living like this,” she exclaimed.
Margaret laughed.
“Then the Brownley luxury hasn’t quite seduced you?”
“I was excited by it. I’m afraid it did seduce me temporarily. But for the last week something’s been wrong with me. And this was it. I wanted to get out of the machinery. They leave you alone and all that—but it’s so ordered—so planned. Everything’s planned from the menus to the social life. They try to do novel things by standing on their heads sometimes in their own grooves—at least the girls do—but really they get no freshness or freedom, do they?”
“I should say that particular crowd didn’t. Of course you mustn’t confound all wealthy people with them. They’re better than some but a great deal less interesting than the best of the wealthy. And of course just because their life doesn’t happen to appeal to your temperament—or mine—”
“Are you always so perfectly balanced?” asked Freda, so admiringly as to escape impertinence.
“I wish I were ever balanced,” answered Margaret. “And now suppose you tell me a little more about what happened so I’ll be sure how I had better take things up with the Brownley girls.”
Freda had been thinking.
“It really began with me,” she said. “Ted Smillie was Barbara’s man and I was flattered when he noticed me. And of course I liked him—then—so I let it go on and she hated me for that.”
“Stop me if I pry—but do you care for the young man now?”
“Oh—no!” cried Freda. “I’m just mortally ashamed of myself for letting myself in as much as I did.”
“Everybody does.”
Margaret’s remark brought other ideas into Freda’s mind. She remembered Gregory Macmillan and his apparent intimacy with Margaret. But she asked nothing, going on, under Margaret’s questioning, with her tale of the night before, and as they came to the part of Gregory’s intervention, Margaret vouchsafed no information.
An hour later, she came back from the Brownley house, with Freda’s suitcase beside her in a taxi.
“You did give them a bad night,” she said to Freda, “Bob Brownley looks a wreck. It appears that later they went out to search the park—scared stiff for you. And you had gone. They saw some men and were terrified.”
“Are they very angry?”
“Barbara tried to stay on her high horse. Said that although it was possible she had misunderstood the situation it looked very compromising and she thought it her duty in her mother’s absence—. Of course, she said, she was sorry that matters had developed as they had. Poor Allie’d evidently been thinking you’d been sewed up in a bag and dropped in the river. They both want to let the thing drop quickly and I said they could say that you were staying with me for the remainder of your visit. I also told Barbara a few home truths about herself, and advised her to be very careful what she said to her mother or I might take it up with her parents.”
“All this trouble for me!” cried Freda. “I am ashamed!”
“Nonsense. But I must go along quickly now. I’ve a meeting. Your trunk will be along sometime this morning. Put it wherever you like and the landlady will send the janitor up with a cot. And—by the way—if Gregory Macmillan drops in, tell him I’m engaged for lunch, will you? You might have lunch with him, if you don’t mind.”
“I feel aghast at meeting him.”
“Don’t let any lack of conventions bother you with Gregory. The lack of them is the best recommendation in his eyes. He’s a wild Irish poet. I’ll tell you about him to-night. I think you’ll like him, Freda. He’s the kindest person I know—and as truthful as his imagination will let him be.”
“What is he in St. Pierre for?”
“Oh, ask him—” said Margaret, departing.