It was three o’clock when Eileen came home from school, tossed her things on the settee in the living-room and curled herself up contentedly on a hassock at Mrs. Ascott’s feet. Her cheeks were flushed and her low brow was framed in little caressing ringlets. She looked amazingly like Lary. Happiness fairly exuded from her being.
“I can’t beat around the bush, Lady Judith. When I have anything to say ... I have to go to it with both feet. Will you take care of this for me?”
She drew a shining gold chain from somewhere within the harbouring crispness of her piqué collar, wound the pliant links around her slender forefinger, and brought to light a ring set with a huge diamond. Hal had given it to her that morning. She had known about it for some time. The stone was one of many that belonged to his father ... and would never be missed. There was a good handful of them in a box in the office safe, and Adelaide would coax them all away from her father. He, Hal, might as well get his—while the getting was good. He had taken this one, and another for a scarf pin for himself, to St. Louis to be mounted the day after he and Eileen became engaged.
“You haven’t told your mother?” Mrs. Ascott interrupted.
“I can’t! I can’t! If you knew mamma better.... It would take all the sacredness—all the meaning out of it ... to have mamma preen herself because her daughter is going to marry the son of the richest man in town.”
“And your father, Eileen?”
The fair face went gray, and pain quivered the sensitive lips. “I can’t make that as clear as the other; but I’m the most unfortunate person in the world. You don’t know how I have dreamt of the time when I could go to my darling old daddy and hide my blushes in his shoulder, while I told him that the greatest thing in life had come to me. And now that it’s come ... he wouldn’t understand ... or approve. And mamma, who hasn’t a mortal bit of use for me, would take it as a personal triumph. Rush off to that silly little Bromfield Sentinel with an announcement of my engagement, and all about who the Marksleys are, and how much money they have. I just can’t give her that gratification. I’d choke.”
Sixteen! and she had life’s irony at her finger ends. The amber eyes filled with tears that glistened a moment on the long lashes and went trickling down the pale checks to make little welts on the stiffly starched piqué collar. Mrs. Ascott felt no impulse to smile. Here was a little hurt child, whose quivering lips might have been pleading for the life of a puppy condemned to be drowned. And it was all so deadly serious to her. Love? She might experience a dozen such heart-burnings before the dawning of the great passion.
“My dear, there is a touchstone given to each one of us, before we reach the years of discretion and judgment. Mine was my grandmother. Yours, I believe, is your father. I hid my engagement to Raoul Ascott from Grandma Holden. Only because I knew she would not approve. And, Eileen, my marriage turned out wretchedly. My husband was much older than I. And, do you know, dear, the immature mind is keenly flattered by the attention of the mature one. Hal is a college senior, almost five years older than you. If you could be sure your vanity isn’t involved—”
“No, that has nothing to do with it. Hal loves me. You can’t understand what that means to me ... because ... you don’t know how my people regard me. The only thing I ever wanted is love. Not the kind that papa gives me. That’s too general. He loves everything and everybody—including my mother, when she treats him like a dog. But I don’t want to think about them, now. It hurts ... to think about my father. I can stand it, because I’m not very lovable. He couldn’t be unkind if he tried. He would go on loving his children, if we did the worst thing in the world. I used to wish Lary would love me ... he’s so much like papa in some ways. But you couldn’t tell anybody that what you wanted was love. They’d think you were stalling—that you were after something else, and used that for a blind. Why, even Bob didn’t really know me—and he was the best friend I ever had. I used to steal matches for him, when he was learning to smoke, and I’ve taken many a lickin’ to keep him out of trouble. I got mean and hateful after he was drowned. Talk about an all-wise Providence! I couldn’t have any respect for a God that would kill Bob and leave me alive.”