“I was in the Catholic Church with a sales-lady from New York who demanded so much solace that I had no time to be frightened, myself.” I plunged at once into a description of the adventure, out of kindness to Mr. Rogers as much as to disembarrass the situation. I knew the violent reaction within him—and I hoped he was communing with his soul in good healthy swear words.
When I did not talk, Mr. Nugent did, and Mr. Rogers’ silence was well covered. Not that he did not recover himself almost immediately, and occasionally put in an apt remark.
Finally Mr. Nugent dismissed the subject of sales-ladies with his usual abruptness.
“I think I can say that I have persuaded your brother and sister to let you go to-morrow,” he said. “I demonstrated the absurdity of such slavish adherence to the conventions in this wilderness. Your maid is chaperonage enough for a few hours’ trip, to say nothing of the fact that Hunter and another man will carry your trunk behind us down the mountain and that still another man with a buckboard will meet us in the valley.”
My eyes danced. “What a lark!” I exclaimed. “To really go on a trip without Bertie or Agatha. But will they consent?”
“I am sure they will. I told them that if they insisted upon it my sister would come for you, and although of course they would not hear of such a thing I think that clinched them. So be prepared to start to-morrow morning at eight.”
And, Polly, I really believe I am going! My love to you.
Helen.
P. S. I almost apologize to Mr. Rolfs. This evening at the Club House when Mrs. Hammond was sitting forward and monopolizing the conversation, as she always does when Mrs. Laurence does not happen to be present, and delivering her entirely commonplace opinions with a vigour of enunciation and a raptness of expression which convince the unanalytical that she is quite the reverse of the little goose she is, Mr. Rolfs suddenly turned to me with such an expression of ferocious disgust that involuntarily I moved closer to him.
“That is what we have to write for!” he exclaimed. “There are thousands, tens of thousands of these damned fool women that we have to write down to and pose to if we want to make our bread and butter.”