Other People's Business: The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale

by Harriet L. Smith

"Her own. A year brings changes, you see, Mr. Ware. The car and the children all belong to her."

"What!" he shouted. His first not unnatural idea was that Persis had become the wife of a prosperous widower, and he was astonished at the pang for which this thought was responsible. Resentfully Annabel recognized the difference between the voice of real emotion and counterfeit tenderness.

Her lips curled as she allayed his consternation. "She came into a little money—an obliging aunt died, I believe. Pity it hadn't come early enough to do her some real good. She patched up her old house, and adopted five or six orphan-asylum kids, and I suppose the poor thing thinks she's having a good time." Even to the most prejudiced eye Annabel could not have looked beautiful at that moment. The venom that poisoned her spirit, disfigured her face like a scar. Hag-ridden by those unlovely twins, jealousy and hate, she looked for the instant prematurely old.

Justin did not notice. He was absorbed in gleaning from her all possible information as to the change in Persis' circumstances and quite indifferent to the emotions of his reluctant informant. With the relentlessness of the thoroughly selfish, he continued his cross-examination till Annabel's mind seemed to herself a squeezed orange. She felt something like terror mingling with a sense of physical exhaustion. It always frightened her to find herself unable to keep a man's attention focused on herself when she had him to herself.

"When shall I see you again?" she asked, as she approached her home. Had the interview continued with the dramatic intensity of its beginning, she could safely have left him to ask that question. Under the circumstances she did not dare.

"I'm not quite sure. I have some business that has hung fire an unconscionable time, and ungallant as it seems, we twentieth century fellows have to put business before pleasure." He smiled propitiatingly and therein lay the sting, that he did not even take the trouble to conceal that he was trying to appease her. Their parting sank to the level of the commonplace for he shook hands hastily, and her look of appeal flattened itself ineffectively against his preoccupation.

A little skilful quizzing of the hotel clerk confirmed in every detail Annabel's remarkable story, and in his own room Justin sat down to think the matter through to a conclusion. The renewal of his acquaintance with Persis Dale nearly a year earlier had enlightened him as to the tenacity of certain impressions he had thought obliterated long before. The girl he had loved in his callow youth and had forgotten, still retained something of her old fascination for him. A year earlier this discovery was responsible for an amused wonder at himself, coupled with a realization of the need of caution. Now common sense took sides with his lingering fondness. Persis Dale, with a comfortable little fortune added to her unique personality, had become distinctly desirable. She was a woman with an infinite capacity for surprises, which meant that she would not bore the man she married, unduly. With a little metropolitan polish added to her native cleverness she should be able to give a good account of herself socially. The children were a drawback of course, but there must be some way of getting rid of an adopted family of which one tired. And it was quite impossible that Persis' fondness for the little ones she had picked up the other day, so to speak, would prove a serious rival to an affection which had been a vital factor in her life for more than twenty years.

By supper-time he had made up his mind. With a little sigh for the freedom he was relinquishing, he resolved on matrimony. He had always intended to marry somebody and domesticity with Persis promised at least commonplace comfort, something Justin was the last man on earth to despise. With the children disposed of, Joel sent adrift and Persis' money wisely handled, there was no reason why they should not get on better than the majority of married people. Justin ate an unusually hearty supper as if to fortify himself for his wooing.

He had made up his mind to ignore the change in Persis' circumstances that his call might seem a spontaneous tribute to her personal attractions. But the change in the house and its furnishings was so pronounced that he judged it bad policy to pass it over without comment. "I thought for a minute I'd come to the wrong house, Persis, and I felt positively alarmed about myself. I knew if I couldn't find the Dale place blindfolded, I needed the services of a nerve specialist." He laughed a little with an air of catching himself up before he had said too much, something he had found effective with many women.

She smiled upon him gravely. "It was the improvements that mixed you up, I suppose. There was a spot on the ceiling of mother's room where the rain leaked through the winter she died. After the papering was finished I missed that spot as if it had been human. Time and again when I went into that room I'd jump as if I'd got into somebody else's house by mistake." Her voice lost a subtle pensive quality as she added: "But the new furniture ain't the best of the changes, Justin. I wish I could show you the children, but they're all in bed and asleep."