“The idea!” she told Betty while she waited for Thomas. “We’ve had that boy here for six months and never once thought to dress him up in Lincoln green, like a post-boy. Never mind! We need some new features for commencement. We can’t have 19— think we’re just resting on our laurels. I’ll make new tea menus to match Thomas—little riding-crops painted across the top, with real green ribbon rosettes stuck on the handles. Or why not have real little riding-crops? Thomas can whittle them out in his idle moments.”
In vain Betty suggested that the Tally-ho was well enough as it was, and that the plans for the Coach and Six must be well advanced by Thursday or Mr. Morton would be impatient and annoyed. Madeline calmly branched out on to fairy menus for the Peter Pan annex, and then became completely absorbed in a fairy play suggested to her by the menus. She was persuaded to keep the Thursday appointment in New York only because she wanted to read the play to Agatha Dwight. Betty, who had been busy all the week with plans and estimates, memoranda of “things we ought to have,” “things to speak to Jim about,” “necessary glass and silver,” and so on, was duly grateful that Madeline consented to accompany her on any pretext; for when Madeline was once on the ground, with the actual site of the Coach and Six, Jim’s ideas, and Mr. Morton’s fury of energy to inspire her, Betty knew she would forget even the fairy play and plan a tea-shop that would dazzle “little old New York.”
And she did. Jasper J. Morton followed her delightedly about all day, his eyes twinkling and his dry laugh cackling out at her queer, unsystematic methods of work. He went with her to choose furniture, to interview the famous Mr. Enderby, who, quite overcome by the awe-inspiring combination of the irresistible Madeline Ayres and the great Mr. Morton, promised to design anything from walls to menus; and finally they rode off together to engage the Washington Square cook, who blandly ignored the great Mr. Morton, but promised to come and cook in his tea-shop any time “if you axes me, Miss Madeline, an’ bring a black kitten as usual, if so desired.”
By the time he had watched Madeline order livery for the porters, design costumes for the maids, pick out china, and overturn all Jim’s plans because the fireplace wasn’t quite big enough to please her, Mr. Morton turned to Betty with a sigh of admiration.
“She’s a steam-engine, that girl. She could tire me out, I guess. See here, I guess she keeps you fairly busy, picking up after her, like. She’s the beginning kind—don’t wait to put on any finishing touches. All right. We’ll hire two or three finishers to go round after her. She’d make several fortunes for anybody that could manage her right. See here, Miss Ayres, couldn’t you wind up the day by inventing another of those splasher novelties?”
Madeline shook her head laughingly. “I’m going to dinner now with Agatha Dwight. I want to read her a play I’ve just written.”
So Mr. Morton bore off Betty and Jim for dinner with him. During the dessert he discovered an opportune acquaintance at the next table, who kept him talking so long that Betty had to interrupt them to say good-bye, and Jim had to take Betty to her train. She had wanted to stay over a day for spring shopping, but there was a Student’s Aid trustee-meeting the next morning, and the secretary must be on hand to report.
It was nearly half-past ten when Betty drove up to the campus. She dismissed her carriage at the little gate close to Morton Hall, which, to her amazement, was still ablaze with lights. In a minute she remembered why; it was the evening of the Belden-Morton play. Betty hurried up the walk, anxious to hear how it had gone off. She thought the door might still be open, and she tried it before she went down to the end of the piazza to tap, as she had arranged to do, on Mrs. Post’s sitting-room window. There was a light in the room, but the shade was up, and between the hanging curtains Betty could see that the room was empty, and the bedroom beyond dark. Evidently Mrs. Post was talking over the play with her girls, utterly forgetful of her promise to let Betty in. So Betty went back to the door and rang, and, as it was rather a shivery spring night, she tramped down the piazza again while she waited for somebody to come and open the door. As she turned the corner she heard voices, and saw a man leading two saddle-horses and a girl in a black dress and white cap and apron—evidently one of the Morton Hall maids—come up a path that led through the shrubberies between Morton Hall and the Students’ Building, where the play had been given.
“I think we should try it over,” the man was saying as they stopped in a patch of light by the back door.
“No indeed! How absurd you are, dear,” tittered the girl. “The idea of rehearsing a thing like——”