Touching the complexion of the Secamp girls, Mrs. Windibrook attributed it to their great privations in the alkali desert. “One day,” continued Mrs. Windibrook, “when their father was ill with fever and ague, they drove the cattle twenty miles to water through that dreadful poisonous dust, and when they got there their lips were cracked and bleeding and their eyelids like burning knives, and Mamie Secamp's hair, which used to be a beautiful brown like your own, my dear, was bleached into a rusty yellow.”
“And they WILL wear colors that don't suit them,” said Cissy impatiently.
“Never mind, dear,” said Mrs. Windibrook ambiguously; “I suppose they will have their reward.”
Nor was the young engineer discussed in a lighter vein. “It pains me dreadfully to see that young man working with the common laborers and giving himself no rest, just because he says he wants to know exactly 'how the thing is done' and why the old works failed,” she remarked sadly. “When Mr. Windibrook knew he was the son of Judge Masterton and had rich relations, he wished, of course, to be civil, but somehow young Masterton and he didn't 'hit off.' Indeed, Mr. Windibrook was told that he had declared that the prosperity of Canada City was only a mushroom growth, and it seems too shocking to repeat, dear, but they say he said that the new church—OUR church—was simply using the Almighty as a big bluff to the other towns. Of course, Mr. Windibrook couldn't see him after that. Why, he even said your father ought to send you to school somewhere, and not let you grow up in this half civilized place.”
Strangely enough, Cissy did not hail this corroboration of her dislike to young Masterton with the liveliness one might have expected. Perhaps it was because Piney Tibbs was no longer present, having left Cissy at the parsonage and returned home. Still she enjoyed her visit after a fashion, romped with the younger Windibrooks and climbed a tree in the security of her sylvan seclusion and the promptings of her still healthy, girlish blood, and only came back to cake and tea and her new hat, which she had prudently hung up in the summer-house, as the afternoon was waning. When they returned to the house, they found that Mr. Windibrook had gone out with his visitor, and Cissy was spared the advertisement of a boisterous escort home, which he generally insisted upon. She gayly took leave of the infant Windibrook and his mother, sallied out into the empty road, and once more became conscious of her new hat.
The shadows were already lengthening, and a cool breeze stirred the deep aisles of the pines on either side of the highway. One or two people passed her hurriedly, talking and gesticulating, evidently so preoccupied that they did not notice her. Again, a rapid horseman rode by without glancing round, overtook the pedestrians, exchanged a few hurried words with them, and then spurred swiftly away as one of them shouted after him, “There's another dispatch confirming it.” A group of men talking by the roadside failed to look up as she passed. Cissy pouted slightly at this want of taste, which made some late election news or the report of a horse race more enthralling than her new hat and its owner. Even the toilers in the ditches had left their work, and were congregated around a man who was reading aloud from a widely margined “extra” of the “Canada City Press.” It seemed provoking, as she knew her cheeks were glowing from her romp, and was conscious that she was looking her best. However, the Secamps' cottage was just before her, and the girls were sure to be on the lookout! She shook out her skirts and straightened her pretty little figure as she approached the house. But to her surprise, her coming had evidently been anticipated by them, and they were actually—and unexpectedly—awaiting her behind the low whitewashed garden palings! As she neared them they burst into a shrill, discordant laugh, so full of irony, gratified malice, and mean exaltation that Cissy was for a moment startled. But only for a moment; she had her father's reckless audacity, and bore them down with a display of such pink cheeks and flashing eyes that their laughter was checked, and they remained open-mouthed as she swept by them.
Perhaps this incident prevented her from noticing another but more passive one. A group of men standing before the new mill—the same men who had so solicitously challenged her attention with their bows a couple of hours ago—turned as she approached and suddenly dispersed. It was not until this was repeated by another group that its oddity forced itself upon her still angry consciousness. Then the street seemed to be full of those excited preoccupied groups who melted away as she advanced. Only one man met her curious eyes,—the engineer,—yet she missed the usual critical smile with which he was wont to greet her, and he gave her a bow of such profound respect and gravity that for the first time she felt really uneasy. Was there something wrong with her hat? That dreadful, fateful hat! Was it too conspicuous? Did he think it was vulgar? She was eager to cross the street on the next block where there were large plate-glass windows which she and Piney—if Piney were only with her now!—had often used as mirrors.
But there was a great crowd on the next block, congregated around the bank,—her father's bank! A vague terror, she knew not what, now began to creep over her. She would have turned into a side street, but mingled with her fear was a resolution not to show it,—not to even THINK of it,—to combat it as she had combated the horrid laugh of the Secamp girls, and she kept her way with a beating heart but erect head, without looking across the street.
There was another crowd before the newspaper office—also on the other side—and a bulletin board, but she would not try to read it. Only one idea was in her mind,—to reach home before any one should speak to her; for the last intelligible sound that had reached her was the laugh of the Secamp girls, and this was still ringing in her ears, seeming to voice the hidden strangeness of all she saw, and stirring her, as that had, with childish indignation. She kept on with unmoved face, however, and at last turned into the planked side-terrace,—a part of her father's munificence,—and reached the symmetrical garden-beds and graveled walk. She ran up the steps of the veranda and entered the drawing-room through the open French window. Glancing around the familiar room, at her father's closed desk, at the open piano with the piece of music she had been practicing that morning, the whole walk seemed only a foolish dream that had frightened her. She was Cissy Trixit, the daughter of the richest man in the town! This was her father's house, the wonder of Canada City!
A ring at the front doorbell startled her; without waiting for the servant to answer it, she stepped out on the veranda, and saw a boy whom she recognized as a waiter at the hotel kept by Piney's father. He was holding a note in his hand, and staring intently at the house and garden. Seeing Cissy, he transferred his stare to her. Snatching the note from him, she tore it open, and read in Piney's well-known scrawl, “Dad won't let me come to you now, dear, but I'll try to slip out late to-night.” Why should she want to come? She had said nothing about coming NOW—and why should her father prevent her? Cissy crushed the note between her fingers, and faced the boy.