"I've got rid of her just as effectively," returned the L.C.P. "I went and talked to her in her room last night, when she was undressing. Ugh! but she was plain in her wrapper. It was a pink flannellet one. Imagine it, with her skin."
"I'd rather not," said I.
"If it weren't for me, probably you'd often have had to see her in it. Well, I made an excuse that she'd looked tired, and complained of the noise under her windows preventing her sleeping. I offered her some trional, and then—I just lingered. She thought it wise to be nice to—your aunt, and I turned the conversation to you. She said you were charming. I said you would be, if you hadn't such a terrible temper. I said you were almost mad with it sometimes, when you were a little boy. Yes, I did, really—you ought to thank me. I dare say you were a horrid little boy. But she didn't seem to mind that much. She told me that she got along splendidly with bad-tempered people: they were always nice to her. That discouraged me a tiny bit, but I hadn't played any really high trumps yet. I went on to say you were very delicate, but she seemed quite pleased at that, although, if she only knew it, she'd be hideous in black. She said she thought delicate men were the most interesting, so that drove me to desperation, and after I'd praised you a little, just enough to be realistic for an aunt, I said what a shame it was about that will of your father's. She pricked up her ears then, and wanted to know what I meant. 'Hasn't he told you?' I asked. And I was shocked to hear you hadn't, because, I said, it would be more honest to let people know how one stood, the position being so peculiar. Your father had left every red cent away from you, I said, in case you married a foreigner; and it was such a blow that she didn't even notice that I'd committed an Americanism. She couldn't speak for a whole minute, and then she asked if you hadn't tried to dispute the will. That would have been no use, said I. It wasn't the kind you could dispute. You often fell in love with girls, not Americans, but you were bound to marry a compatriot in the end, unless you could find a foreigner with enough money to support you. Even after all that she held on to you by the ragged edge. Couldn't you make a lot of money, she asked, with your pictures, which are so famous? They weren't popular, I said, and though the critics always praise them, you could hardly ever sell. 'Besides,' said I, 'he's so lazy, he doesn't paint a decent-sized picture once in three years.'"
"Good heavens!" I exclaimed. "What a character you gave me. It's a wonder she didn't rush to Robert van Buren's door, and cry to him that she'd reconsidered."
"I saved him, too, for Phyllis's sake. It was too late for her to go to him at that hour, or even send a note, as I saw by her eye she thought of doing. I stayed with her till after twelve, on purpose. And the last thing I said was, that I thought her decision not to accept Mr. van Buren so wise, as such an intelligent woman as she might marry any one. It showed, said I, how undeserving he was, that the minute she took herself from him, he asked another girl to be his wife. 'Has he?' she almost screamed. 'Yes,' said I. 'Didn't you know? He is now engaged to Miss Rivers, with the approval of his sisters, and a telegram has been sent to his mother, telling her all.'"
This was news worth hearing, and I forgave the L.C.P. the inopportuneness of her interruption with Nell.
"Who told you about van Buren's engagement to Phyllis?" I asked.
"No one. But I thought they ought to be engaged, if they weren't, and knew they never would be if Menela weren't got rid of.
"But about the telegram to Mrs. van Buren——"
"The minute I went to my room, I sent for a waiter, and wrote one, without signing it. I hoped she'd think it came from her son, and that, in his excitement, he'd forgotten to put his name."