“For me?” cried Gerald, jumping up, his face aflame. “Why, it—it can’t——”
“Yes, it can. And it is, or rather it was, for I’ve sent her away. Maybe you forget I made you promise——”
“Stand aside!” spake a dramatic contralto voice from beyond the portières, “I have a right here.”
The curtains were thrust apart, revealing the protesting, discomfited butler; and, pushing past him, a tall, slender young woman, quietly but prettily dressed, pompadoured of hair, and very, very determined of aspect.
“Good Lord!” grunted Caleb under his breath, “she ain’t even a blonde. I thought they all——”
But she was in the library itself, and facing the amazed master of the house. Gerald, at first sight of her, had sprung forward and now grasped the newcomer ardently by both hands and drew her to him.
“I was sure,” murmured the intruder in that same throaty contralto, rich, yet insensibly conveying a vague impression of latent vulgarity, “I was sure your man was mistaken, and that you couldn’t have meant to turn me away without a word when I had come so far to see my precious truant boy. Did you? We women, Mrs. Conover,” she went on, eyes and voice claiming alliance of the meek-faced little nonentity who shrank behind Anice Lanier, “we women understand how hard it is to keep away from the man who has taught us to love him. Don’t we? Men never can quite realize that. Not even my Gerald, or he wouldn’t have stayed away so long or made me stay away from him. Would he?”
“It was Dad,” broke in Gerald. “I told you that in my first letter, darling. He won’t stand for our marriage, and——”
“Ah! that is because he doesn’t know,” she laughed archly. “Mr. Conover, this big splendid boy of mine is too much in love to explain as he should. And he’s so high-spirited, he can’t listen as patiently to advice as he ought to. Can you, Gerald? So I came myself, when I couldn’t stand it any longer to be away from him. I knew I could make you understand. Can’t I?”
“I can tell better when you’ve tried,” answered Caleb, watching with a sort of awed fascination the alternate plunges and rearings of the vibrant black pompadour, which, in deference to the prevailing style of the moment—and of the chorus—was pendent directly above the visitor’s right eye.