The Priceless Pearl

by Alice Duer Miller

CHAPTER THREE

That evening Pearl had the satisfaction of writing Mr. Wood that Durland had stopped smoking. She gave the whole scene on the beach. Never before in all her life had she been amused at writing a letter; she had looked upon them as a duty to be paid to friendship. But to this man whom she had never seen she enjoyed writing. It was like patting Alfred—you could express your friendly emotion without fear of rousing any response whatsoever. Almost every day she had some progress to report—Mrs. Conway had consented to keep her jewelry in the safe in her bedroom provided for the purpose. At first she had positively refused, asserting that as she could never remember the combination her jewels remained locked up until an expert was sent down from town to open the safe; and that for her part she would as lief a thief had them, who might get some fun out of them, as that they stayed locked up in her safe for the rest of time. But Pearl very competently offered to make the combination and remember it, and come every morning and get them out at any hour Mrs. Conway chose. A rumor of burglaries in the neighborhood induced Edna to yield.

Then before a week was over algebra became to Durland an illumined subject, a study of mystic beauty and romantic association. He not only mastered it in the proud determination to prove that men were not fools but he invented clever discussions to lengthen his brief hour into an hour and a half; while Antonia, wondering at his industry, kept insisting that it was time to go to the public beach.

All this Pearl wrote, day by day. But she could not write the thing which of all others she knew Mr. Wood wanted to hear—that Antonia was dressed like a nice little girl. The best she could say was that the child was not actually dirty. Nor could she say that she had gained Mrs. Conway's friendship. That lady remained aloof, a little malicious, always in the opposition, treating Pearl's triumphs as petty tyrannies over the children's free spirits, treating Pearl's failures as splendid triumphs in the field of human freedom.

When Pearl appealed to her with "I don't think Antonia ought to wear that torn dress to Olive's for tea, Mrs. Conway," Edna would smile and answer, "You know, Miss Exeter, I can't think those things a matter of life and death the way you do. I own I should be sorry if at eleven she thought of nothing but dress."

"Like Dolly," said Antonia.

That, Pearl discovered, was the secret of Antonia's dislike of neatness. She was afraid of being like Dolly—Dolly, who represented simply everything of which Antonia disapproved.

All this Pearl wrote to Anthony; long, long letters composed after the rest of the household were in bed. "It is long after midnight, and I should be in bed instead of writing——"

She paused. The well-known illustrator who had done her picture for the cleaning-fluid firm had told her—and the illustrator was herself a beautiful woman, experienced in the ways of the world—that all love letters from unmarried girls ended with the words, "But it is after midnight, and I ought to be in bed instead," whether they were written at noon or at night.