With the prospect of meeting the star, interest in the play increased ten-fold. Romantic revelries ran riot through four foolish little heads. Geraldine sat back and smiled cynically. “Young idiots,” she thought contemptuously, as her roving glance settled upon Elinor Benton. With tightly compressed lips and eyes aflame with envy, she stared at the girl. Only for a fleeting instance, however, did she permit her expression to betray her chaotic emotion. She leaned forward in her chair apparently absorbed in the people on the stage.
As she had expected, Templeton Druid’s reply to her invitation was a delightfully affable little billet expressing his pleasure at the hope of seeing Mrs. DeLacy and meeting her friends. He promised to arrive at the Waldorf as expeditiously as possible after the matinée.
After their drive to the Waldorf in the Thurston limousine, it was Geraldine who maneuvered to walk behind with Elinor, as they strolled leisurely through the hotel lobby. Young as she was, Elinor Benton could not help but notice that something was disturbing her chaperone as Mrs. DeLacy glanced nervously from side to side.
“What is it, Geraldine?” she asked in concern. “Is anything wrong?”
Mrs. DeLacy shook her head half-heartedly, then her fine eyes came to rest appealingly on Elinor’s.
“No—no,” she began, then hurried on with nervous suddenness. “No—er—well, yes, there is, Elinor dearest. I hate so to tell you, but—but—well,” she lowered her voice to a whisper: “I’m afraid, dear, you’ll have to come to my rescue. Here I have invited you all to tea and asked Mr. Druid to join us, and I have just discovered that I lack the necessary funds——”
“Not another word, please, Geraldine,” Elinor interrupted hastily. “It’s a pleasure to be of any service to you, dear.” And opening her bag, she extracted the fifty-dollar bill her father had placed there, and pressed it into Geraldine’s hands.
“Thank you so much,” beamed the chaperone, glancing hurriedly at the bill before she thrust it into her purse. “I’ll return it at the earliest opportunity.”
If anyone had dared assert that Geraldine DeLacy was a social parasite, Elinor would have defended her with emphatic loyalty.
Nevertheless, that was an appellation Mrs. DeLacy justly deserved. It was no great secret how she subsisted luxuriously upon the generosity of friends and acquaintances. Habitual borrowing had become her source of income, and she was well known to mention her inadequate memory as extenuation for failing to repay her obligations.