“Afraid of you?” Sally echoed, her voice struggling strangely through pain. “Oh, you mean—?” She tried to collect her wits, to push aside the incredible fact of David’s desertion, so that she could concentrate on Van Horne and the frightening significance of his presence here coupled with his knowledge of her past.
“Dear little Sally!” Van Horne said tenderly, and Sally clenched her fist to strike him for using the words which had been heavenly sweet when David had uttered them so long ago. “I told you the last time I saw you that you had not seen the last of Arthur Van Horne. I meant it, but I give you my word I hardly expected to find you here! I spent the deuce of a lot of time and money trying to trace you after you left the carnival. Old Bybee finally told me that you’d run away and had probably married your David. So I took my broken heart to China, Japan, Egypt and God knows where. And now like the chap who sought for the Holy Grail, I find you at home waiting for me.”
“I wasn’t waiting for you,” Sally contradicted him indignantly. “I was waiting for David and he’s just told me that he doesn’t want me. I hoped I’d never see you again!”
“Why, Sally, Sally!” Van Horne chided her, his black eyes full of mocking humor. “Don’t you realize that I’m the oldest friend you have in this new life of yours? I really haven’t got used to the idea yet of your being Enid Barr’s daughter. Of course I knew there was something mysterious about her overweening interest in ‘Princess Lalla,’ but this thick old bean of mine wasn’t functioning very well in those days. My heart was too full of that same lovely little crystal-gazer. But when I read the rather masterly bit of fiction in the papers, the story which good old asinine Courtney Barr gave out as to your parentage and his wardship which he had supplanted by a legal adoption, the old bean began to click again, and I can assure you I got a great deal of quiet enjoyment out of the thing. Fancy the impeccable Enid Barr’s having—”
“Oh, stop” Sally commanded him, flaming with anger. “Don’t dare say a word against my mother—I mean, against Enid—”
“Against your mother,” Van Horne corrected her serenely. “Of course I haven’t told anyone, Sally, and I don’t really see why I should, if—Listen, child: don’t you think we ought to have a long, comfortable talk about—old times? We’re likely to be interrupted here any minute by a chaperon—or by your mother or by a couple of young idiots seeking a quiet place to ‘neck’ in. Slip out of the house when the show’s over—the servants’ entrance will be better—and we’ll go for a drive through the park.”
“I shall do no such thing,” Sally repudiated the suggestion hotly. “I’m going back to the ballroom now. Please don’t come with me.”
When she arrived, breathless, at the door of the ballroom, she bumped into Enid, whose face was white and anxious and suddenly almost old.
“Darling, where have you been?” her mother whispered fiercely. “I’ve had Courtney and Randall and two of the footmen looking for you. This is your party, you know. You have other guests besides David Nash. I knew it was a mistake to ask him—”
“Where is he, Mother?” Sally interrupted rudely. “I’ve been with someone else most of the time.” She could not bring herself yet to mention Van Horne’s name to her mother, for fear Enid would notice that something was sadly amiss.