Bessie, standing near the telephone, had heard it all. Her face was very white and haughty. Her eyes seemed darker, almost black, with a kind of blue fire in them. She began to dress at once, rapidly, in spite of her mother’s protests.
“What are you going to do, Bessie? You mustn’t get up! You are not fit to be out of bed.”
“I must, mother, don’t you see I must? I cannot have that woman thinking those things.”
“But Bessie, you can’t carry those boxes down there yourself. You oughtn’t to go out today at all.”
“I’ll hire a taxi and take them down, mother. Now, don’t you worry about me. I’m quite all right I only needed this to stiffen me up. No, you don’t need to go with me,” she protested, as her mother began to unfasten her work-dress and take down her Sunday crêpe de chine, “I think it is just as well that you shouldn’t. I’m not going to make a scene. I’ll be a lady, mother dear. But that woman has got to understand that I am not that kind of a girl!”
Bessie finished a hasty toilet, and looked every inch a lady herself as she ran down-stairs to order a taxi.
She obediently drank the glass of milk her mother handed her, and let the driver carry out her boxes, departing in state, with a promise to return immediately.
She walked into Grevet’s clad in righteous indignation; quietly, almost haughtily. She was not wearing the bargain coat this time. She had chosen to put on a little ensemble suit that her mother had made her from a beautiful piece of dark blue silk material, a touch of exquisite embroidery on the tunic where it showed in front, a touch of really fine fur on the collar. In lines and style it might have come from Grevet’s itself, so unique and pleasing was the whole effect. The salespersons were puzzled to understand, and looked at her with new respect. Madame came forward smiling before she recognized her, and halted half perplexed. The driver had set the boxes down inside the door, and touched his cap with a smile for the tip she had given him. This girl had an air about her that somehow took the condescension from Madame’s manner.
“There has been some mistake,” Bessie said gravely, “I came here yesterday with Mr. Van Rensselaer to help him select a gift for a friend. The purchase has been sent to me instead of to the lady for whom it was intended. I have brought it back. I am sorry I cannot give you the correct name and address, but Mr. Van Rensselaer did not happen to mention it. I have a kind of a dim memory that he called her Gertrude, if that will help you any, but I am not quite sure. I wasn’t interested to remember, you know.”
Bessie spoke with a grave air of finality.