“We have forgotten all about Chipmunk Lake. I should like to see some other lakes and some other people. But it is a great deal to ask of your sister.”
“My sister is undoubtedly pining for a new acquaintance. There are only four families at the lake and they soon get talked out. Will you go? I may as well confess that I have already written to and heard from her. Here is her note to you.”
It was such a jolly letter, so direct and natural and unwitty. I felt at home with her at once—her name is Mrs. Van Worden, and I liked her further because she spelt Van with a capital V. I am told that Van in New York is quite an insignia of nobility and I met two of its proud possessors in London who had it printed on their cards with a small v. Considering that it is over every other shop in Holland and Belgium, this certainly is an instance of American progressiveness.
But to return to Mr. Nugent—who is delightfully free of all nonsense, bless him.
“Yes, I do want to go,” I said, “and I hope it can be arranged—if only for the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Van Worden. I feel I shall get on with her.”
“Yes, you will get on, I am sure. She and her friends at the lake belong to the great world without going in for all its frivolities and vulgarities. Let us go back and arrange it at once,” he said, jumping up. “There is no reason why we should not go to-morrow.”
24th
But we did not go “to-morrow,” Polly, and I have not been really hopeful of going until to-night. Agatha said quietly and impassively that, better or not, nothing would induce her to leave Bertie, that she would never sleep three yards away from him until he was quite well again. That left me without a chaperon, for although Mrs. Van Worden had written her a charming note too, she had not invited any one else at the lake, and I believe she knows several of them. Whether this omission rankled—she appears to be quite a personage—or whether they are all determined I shall marry Mr. Rogers, I don’t know, but I was invited to the Club House to luncheon next day and not less than four women attempted to dissuade me from going. The road was “frightful,” quite the worst in the Adirondacks. Life there was unbearably dull. They were worked out society women who took a sort of rest cure in the Adirondacks, eating and sleeping themselves into a condition of recuperating stupidity. There were “no men,” as the fishing was not good, and too many other drawbacks to mention. It was Mrs. Hammond who was commissioned with the final dissuasions. She walked home with me, and as we were crossing the pretty rustic bridge over the lake’s outlet, she put her hand in my arm, and said with a slight blush:
“You must not mind what I am going to say to you, dear Lady Helen, I take such an interest in you. Who could help it?—you are so beautiful and a stranger here. And of course I am nearly ten years older than yourself and a married woman. I don’t want you to go to those people; they are all rather fast. Mrs. Van Worden has had several stories in circulation about her that have come very close to being scandals——.”
“What!” I cried, “am I really to meet an American woman who has committed adultery? How much at home I shall feel! So many of my friends have, you know.”