Maxwell’s eyes met hers; they laughed together at the boyishness of it, and Maxwell said good-bye, and departed. Cornelia, as she went into the house, wondered why the brief conversation had seemed to lighten the monotony of the day so much, and then fell to wondering why Maxwell had asked that question about Carey.
Five minutes later the door-bell rang; and, when she opened the door, there stood Clytie Dodd, a brilliant red feather surrounding a speck of a hat, and her face painted and powdered more wickedly than ever. She was wearing a yellow organdie dress with scallops on the bottom and adornments of colored spheres of cloth attached with black stitches at intervals over the frock. She carried a green parasol airily, and there was a “man” with an incipient and tenderly nursed mustache waiting for her at the gate. She greeted Cornelia profusely, and talked very loudly and very fast.
“Is Kay here? I’m just dying to see him and kid him about having his picture in the paper. He always said he’d never get his there. But isn’t it great, though? Some hero, I’ll tell the world! Who was the kid? Anybody belonging to the family? The paper didn’t state. Oh, darn! I’m sorry Kay isn’t here. I wanted him to meet my friend,” nodding toward the man at the gate. “We’ve got a date on for tonight, and we want him and his friend Mr. Barlock. Some girl friends of mine are coming, and we’re going to have a dance and a big feed. It’s just the kind of thing Kay likes. When’ll he be back? Where is he? At the garage? We stopped there, but Pat said he’d went off with a car for some high muckymuck. I thought p’raps he’d stopped off here to take you a ride er something. Well, I s’pose I’ll have to leave a message. Say, Ed, what time we going to start? Eight? Oh, rats! we oughtta start at half past seven. It’s a good piece out to that Horseheads Inn I was tellin’ you ’bout. We’ll start at half past seven. Say, you tell your brother to call me up soon’s he gets here. He often phones from the drug-store. Tell him I’ll give the details. But in case he don’t get me tell him we’ll stop by here for him at half past seven. Tell him not to keep us waiting. I gotta go on now ’cause we gotta tell two other people, a girl and a man. It’s awful annoying not having telephones everywhere. I don’t know what we’d ever do without ours. S’-long! Don’t forget to tell Kay!” and she flitted down the steps and out the gate to her “man.”
CHAPTER XXIII
That awful girl!
Cornelia shut the door, and dropped weakly into a chair. Her punishment was come upon her. She might have known she ought not to meddle with a girl like that, inviting her to the house and making her feel free there, setting the seal of family friendship on an intimacy that never ought to have been between her and the son of the house.
And now what should she do? Should she conceal the message and try to get Carey to go somewhere else with her? Or should she tell him the truth, and let him choose his own way? She knew beforehand that any kind of remonstrance from her would be vain. Carey was at the age when he liked to feel that he owned himself and took no advice from anybody unless he asked for it. She was enough of a stranger to him yet to realize that she must go slowly and carefully. It is a pity that we cannot more of us keep the polite relation of comparative strangers with our own family; it might tend to better things. It is strange that we do not realize this. The fact is, the best-meaning of us often antagonize the ones we love, and send them swiftly toward the very thing we are trying to keep them from doing. The wisdom of serpents and the harmlessness of doves are often forgotten in our scheme of living, and loving consideration of one another is a thing far too rare in even Christian homes today.
Cornelia’s honest nature always inclined to telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. She would have liked to go to her brother and give the message straight, knowing that he would decline it; but the fact was, she was not at all sure of him. Clytie’s manner implied that this sort of thing had been habitual amusement with him. And Cornelia was not at all sure that Clytie’s behavior on the night of the party had made any deep impression against her. Carey was young, and liked fun. These young people were ready to show him a good time, and what boy of his age could resist that? If she only knew of some way of getting up a counter-attraction! But what would a mild little fudge party or a walk to the park be beside the hilarity offered by Clytie’s program.
Moreover, even if she succeeded in getting Carey away from the house before the wild crowd arrived, Clytie would be sure to tell him afterwards, and he would blame the sister for not giving the message. She was sure he would do that even if he did not intend to go. And there was Brand! He was invited, too. Of course Carey would go if Brand did. She wildly reviewed the idea of taking Brand into her confidence, and rejected it as not only useless, but a thing that would be regarded by Carey as a disloyalty to himself. Her perplexity deepened. Then she suddenly remembered her new source of help, and, slipping to her knees beside the big chair in which she had been sitting, she prayed about it.
An outsider would think it a strange coincidence, perhaps. It did not seem so to the weary, perplexed sister that even while she knelt and poured out her worries to her heavenly Father the answer to her prayer should be on the very door-step. She rose as the bell pealed through the house once more, and, opening the door, found Grace Kendall standing there. She seemed like an angel from heaven, and Cornelia almost wondered whether she shouldn’t tell her troubles to this new friend.