And so it went.
But if she did not love her husband there was one being in whom her frivolous heart was really bound up—Nita—her “baby sister,” as she called her, and when Terriss, the colonel, went the way of all flesh, preceded only a few months by the wife of his bosom, the few thousands in life insurance he had managed to maintain went to the two daughters. Not one penny was ever laid out in payment of the debts of either the father or husband. Nita was sent to an extravagant finishing school in Gotham, and along in May of the young girl’s graduating year, blithe little Mrs. Garrison arrived, fresh from the far West, and after a few weeks of sightseeing and shopping the sisters appeared at the Point, even half-mourning by this time discarded. Thirteen years’ difference was there in the ages of the Fairy Sisters, and not a soul save those who knew them in former days on the frontier would have suspected it. Mrs. Frank in evening dress didn’t look over twenty.
One lovely evening early in August, just about the time that Cadet Captain Latrobe began to show well to the front in the run for the prize, the two sisters had gone to their room at the hotel to dress for the hop. It was their custom to disappear from public gaze about six o’clock and when they came floating down the stairs in filmy, diaphanous clouds of white, the halls were well filled with impatient cavaliers in the natty cadet uniform, and with women “waiting to see.” Then the sisters would go into the dining room and have some light refreshment, with a glass of iced tea—and no matter how torrid the heat or how flushed and dragged other women might look, they were inviting pictures of all that was ever fresh, cool and fragrant. The two fluffy blonde heads would be huddled close together a minute as they studied the bill of fare, and virtuous matrons at other tables, fanning vigorously, would sniff and say: “All for effect. They know that supper bill by heart. It never changes.” All the same, at the bottom of this public display of sisterly devotion and harmony and in spite of occasional tiffs and differences, there was genuine affection on both sides, for as a child Nita had adored Margaret, and there could be no doubting the elder’s love for the child. Some regimental observers said that every bit of heart that eldest Terriss girl had was wrapped up in the little one. Neither girl, even after Margaret’s marriage, would listen to a word in disparagement of the other, but in the sanctity of the sisterly retreat on the third floor of the old hotel there occurred sometimes spirited verbal tilts that were quite distinctly audible to passers-by in the corridor, provided they cared to listen, which some of them did. On this especial August evening Mrs. Frank was in an admonitory frame of mind. They had known Mr. Latrobe barely three weeks, and yet as Mrs. Frank was sauntering around a turn in Flirtation Walk, leaning on the arm of the cadet adjutant, there in the pathway right ahead stood Nita, a lovely little picture with downcast eyes, and “Pat” Latrobe bending over her with love and passion glowing in his handsome face, pleading eagerly, clinging fervently to both her tiny, white-gloved hands. Mrs. Garrison saw it all in the flash of a second, the adjutant not at all, for with merry laughter she repeated some words he had just spoken as though they were about the wittiest, funniest things in the world, and looked frankly up into his eyes as though he were the best and brightest man she had met in years—so his eyes were riveted, and the tableau had time to dissolve. All the same that sight gave Mrs. Garrison rather more than a bad quarter of an hour. She was infinitely worried. Not because Pat Latrobe had fallen desperately in love with her charming little sister—that was his lookout—but what—oh, what might not happen if the charming little sister were to fall in love with that handsome soldier boy. At all hazards, even if she had to whisk her away to-morrow, that had to be stopped, and this very evening when they went to their room Margaret spoke.
“Nita, if it were only for Mr. Latrobe I should not care a snap of my finger, but it’s you—you! I thought you had more sense. I thought you fully understood that you couldn’t afford to lose yourself a moment, and yet if ever a girl looked like yielding you did this very afternoon. For my sake, for your own sake, Nita, don’t let it go any further—don’t fall in love—here—whatever you do.”
The younger sister stood at the dressing table at the moment, her face averted. The Mary Powell was just rounding the Point, and the mellow, melodious notes of her bell were still echoing through the Highlands. Nita was gazing out on the gorgeous effect of sunset light and shadow on the eastern cliffs and crags across the Hudson, a flush as vivid mantling her cheeks, her lip quivering. She was making valiant efforts to control herself before replying.
“I’m not in love with him,” she finally said.
“Perhaps not—yet. Surely I hope not, but it looked awfully like it was coming—and Nita, you simply mustn’t. You’ve got to marry money if I have to stand guard over you and see you do it—and you know you can this minute—if you’ll only listen.”
The younger girl wheeled sharply, her eyes flashing. “Peggy, you promised me I shouldn’t hear that hateful thing again—at least not until we left here—and you’ve broken your word—twice. You——”
“It’s because I must. I can’t see you drifting—the way I did when, with your youth and—advantages you can pick and choose. Colonel Frost has mines and money all over the West, and he was your shadow at the seashore, and all broken up—he told me—so when we came here. Paddy Latrobe is a beautiful boy without a penny—”
“His uncle—” began Nita feebly.