As a fact, both Milly and her mother had been much troubled by the course of recent events. The previous afternoon Jack had taken a sad farewell of his friends in Broad Place. His passage was already booked in the Arcadia, which that very Saturday was to sail from Liverpool to New York. All his hopes had proved futile, all his arguments vain. Mary could not be induced to change her mind, which even at the eleventh hour he had ventured to think was just possible. In those last desperate moments, strength of will had enabled her to stick to her resolve. And in the absence of any intimation from Bridport House the Tenderfoot had been driven to carry out his threat. Yet up till the very last he had tried his utmost to persuade the girl he loved to merge her own life in his and accompany him to that new world where a career awaited him.
Perhaps these efforts had not been wholly reasonable. She had a real vocation for the theater if ever girl had, even if he had a real vocation for jobbing land. But allowance has to be made for a strong man in love. He was in sorry case, poor fellow, but her sense of duty to others was so strong, that even if it meant tragic unhappiness for both, as it surely must, she still sought the courage not to yield.
Such a decision was going to cost a very great deal. The previous afternoon, at the moment of parting, she had been fully aware of that, and hour by hour since she had realized it with a growing intensity. A stern effort of the will had been needed for Princess Bedalia to achieve her five hundred-and-sixty-second appearance that evening; she had spent a miserable night and now, in spite of the whole-heartedness with which she threw herself into Milly’s affairs, her laugh was pitched a little too high.
Since the visit to Bridport House she had come to know her own mind quite definitely. She was deeply in love with Jack, but unless the powers that were gave consent, she was now resolved never to marry him. In vain her friends continued to assure her that such an attitude was wrong. In vain the Tenderfoot declared it to be simply preposterous. Cost what it might, it had become a point of honor not to yield. To one of such clear vision, with, as it seemed, a rather uncanny insight into the workings of worlds beyond her own, it was of vital importance to study the interests of Bridport House.
Milly, even if very angry with her friend, could not help admiring this devotion to a quixotic sense of right, and the force of character which faced the issue so unflinchingly. She could not begin to understand the point of view, but she well knew what it was going to cost. And this morning, in spite of the pleasant and piquant drama of her own affairs, she could not rid herself of a feeling of distress on Mary’s account. Now it had come “to footing the bill,” a heavy price would have to be paid. And to Milly’s shrewd, engagingly material mind, the whole situation was exasperating.
So much for the thoughts uppermost in a loyal heart, while the misguided cause of them danced a pas seul in honor of the morning’s news. Milly, indeed, as she gazed in the glass over the chimney-piece to see what sort of a figure she made in the coat of sable, was much nearer tears than was either seemly or desirable. Still, in spite of that, she was able to muster a healthy curiosity upon the subject of her appearance. Fur has a trick of making common people look more common, and uncommon people look more uncommon, a trite fact of which Milly, the astute, was well aware. It was pleasant to find at any rate that a moment’s fleeting survey set all her doubts at rest upon that important point. The coat, a dream of beauty, became her quite miraculously. What a virtue there was in that deep, rich gloss! It gave new values to the eyes, the hair, the rounded chin, even the piquant nose of the wearer.
“You’re a dear!” Milly burst out, as she turned aside from the glass. But the person to whom the tribute was offered was quite absorbed in looking through the open window. Indeed, at that very moment a succession of royal toots from a motor horn ascended from the precincts of Broad Place, and Mary ran out on to the veranda with a view halloa. Then, her face full of humor and eloquence, she turned to look back into the room with the thrilling announcement: “Charley’s here!”
III
In two minutes, or rather less as time is measured in Elysium, Mr. Charles Cheesewright had entered that pleasant room with all the gay assurance of an accepted suitor.
“How awfully well it reads, doesn’t it?” he said, taking up the Morning Post with the fingers of a lover.