"And your motive—?" I asked.
She stretched her graceful arms wide. Her hair had a blue sheen in the shaded light of the verandah and her skin was magnolia-white.
"I haven't any!" said Mercedes frankly.
"Not even a small gold band in the perspective?" I said.
She looked down at her ringless hands: at the heap of fragrant linen lying in her lap.
"This is to be part of my trousseau," she answered, indirectly, "part of what you call a 'Hope Chest.' All girls of my class sew a great deal and lay it all away until they marry. And, after all, I am not like my New York cousins, for where they say 'perhaps—when I get tired of playing,' I say, 'someday, when I meet the right man.' And so, you see, I am not like my Mother's people either—not quite. For they say, 'someday when my parents are satisfied—and let us hope it will be soon!'"
I didn't wonder that Bill—that the men found her charming. The mixture of innocence and sophistication, the innate and the acquired worldliness was really delicious.
"Do you talk to many people like this?" I asked curiously.
"Of course not," she answered, wide-eyed. "I know of no one who would understand. There are times," she admitted, with a little sigh, "When I really do not understand myself."
At the luncheon table I found myself looking at Mercedes, half as if she were a stranger, half as if she were an old friend.