“I do not have to tell you any more than Madeline.” Seeing the grim look on Norris’ face, Dick went on, “Let’s go in and to bed. We seem to rub each other the wrong way to-night. If we don’t separate soon we shall be having a French duel.”
CHAPTER XII
AN ENGAGEMENT
The gates of the delectable world, it seemed to Lena, opened very slowly, and the mild fragrance and warmth that dribbled out to her through their narrow crack intensified her outer dreariness. Once in a while Mrs. Lenox or Miss Elton did her some little kindness. Occasionally Mr. Percival came to see her, but her shame of her mother and her home made these visits a doubtful pleasure. The sordid monotony of her work oppressed her every morning and depressed her every night. The little money that she earned fell like a snow-flake into the yawning furnace of her desires. Bitter is the fate of her to whom the goods of this world are the final good, and to whom those goods are denied.
There came a night when a certain great lady gave a dance, and Lena was deputed by the feminine head of the staff of the Star to report these doings of society. At first the chance looked to her delightful. She was to have a peep into the world of charm which was her dream and her ambition. She walked through the wide empty rooms with their soft lights and masses of flowers. She surveyed the dining-room, a wilderness of candles, orchids and maiden-hairs. She felt her feet sink luxuriously into the rugs, oh, so different from the threadbare ingrain carpet at home! She peeped into the ball-room, smilax-draped and glowing as if eager to welcome the guests to come. Through it all she carried a prim air, making businesslike notes on her little pad; but beneath her very demure exterior raged a storm of rebellion that these things should be and not be for her. The world was one huge sour grape; and yet she must smile as though it tasted sweet. There were blurs in her eyes as she stumbled up the back stairs, whither her way was pointed, that she might stand in a corner of the dressing-room where the now fast-arriving ladies were laying off their wraps. She swallowed a lump in her throat and winked hard in the attempt to forget or ignore the careless looks thrown at her by these ladies, as the maids removed the long cloaks made more for splendor than for warmth, or drew up the gloves on bare arms less lovely than her own. Many of the women looked twice at her, and she thought, and resented the fact, that they were surprised to see so much beauty. She could not be impersonal like the other reporters,—sensible girls, taking all this as a part of the day’s work, and whispering names to one another, which Lena, too, must catch and treasure for her reportorial harvest. She must glance with swift inclusiveness at the more striking gowns, that later she may serve them up in the technical slapdash of the social column.
An hour of it left her faint and sick, not with cynical scorn of the spectacle, but with longing and self-pity. The crowd in the dressing-room was thinning now, but, whether she had finished her duty or not, she must escape. She could endure it no longer. Again she made her way down the narrow non-angelic stairs and out at a little side door. The night air was sweet and cold. She paused for a moment under the light of the porte-cochère to watch the string of carriages and the swirl of silk and laces that passed through the opening door, to listen to gusts of music that came to an abrupt end as the outside door shut on her.
Suddenly a figure loomed beside her, and she look up to see Dick Percival, straight and big, with the electric light gleaming on his white shirt-front, where his overcoat fell back. There was an unpleasant sternness in his deeply-shadowed eyes.
“Miss Quincy!” he exclaimed. “What are you doing here!”