She pointed to a negligée thrown over a chair by the dressing-table.
“Take it; it will make me very happy to know that you have it.” She tried to visualize Jennie in the negligée, but the picture was not funny. She turned her head away so that Jennie should not see the tears in her eyes.
“You’ll most likely be getting a lot of things yourself, Miss; a man’s gone down to the village for the mail. You’ll be getting a lot of things from the city.”
“I’m afraid not; still I may get some letters which will be welcome.”
“I’ll go down and see—he may be back. He went early.”
She was back in an incredibly short space of minutes bearing one letter, from Dorothy Winslow.
“And Miss Mayfield wants to know if you’ll come to her room when you’re dressed,” said Jennie, who, seeing that Ruth was going to read her letter, left her with another hurried, awkward “thank you, Miss,” delivered through the door as she hurried off with her blue silk prize.
Dorothy’s Christmas letter fairly bubbled over with happiness, and with an affection for Ruth which she had never suspected.
“It seems ages since you went away,” she wrote, “and I’m just dying to tell you everything—how Nels was awfully humble and admitted he’s been a perfect silly over that imitation high siren, and then he was jealous—furiously jealous over your roses. It was hard not to tell him the truth, but I didn’t—not until afterward, when he asked me to marry him. Yes, he did! And we’ve done it. Neither of us had any money, but that didn’t really make any difference. He’s always been able to buy his own cigarettes and so have I and there’s no reason why we can’t do it together just as well as apart. We’ve got the funniest little apartment on Thirty-fourth Street—just a room with an alcove and a bath and a kitchenette. Nels is going to get another place to work—one room some place—very business-like and all that sort of thing and I’ll work at home. But please do hurry back and have dinner with us sometime. You’ll see! I can cook. But I must work, too, else Nels will get ever so many leagues ahead of me. And please have you delivered my message to the Dragon? You did give him Nels’ message I know for Nels heard from him and that man with the double name who is so splendidly entertaining you over the holidays is going to buy the picture. You must get back in time for the party we’ll put on to celebrate when the check comes. You know I feel that you made it all happen.”
She chatted on over ten pages of art school gossip that made Ruth rather homesick, and eager to get back to New York, especially as the first object of her visit had been accomplished. But had it been accomplished? The snake was killed and Professor Pendragon was cured. To her the connection seemed obvious. Professor Pendragon had been cured because the object of George’s faith had been destroyed and with it the mind-born malady which, through faith, he had put upon the man who was his rival. But this did not accomplish all of Ruth’s desire. There still remained the Prince. Even though George’s power over Pendragon had been destroyed, might he not still exercise the same influence over Gloria? And would George calmly submit to the insult that had been put upon him? Her whole trust was now in Pendragon. He had shown that he could fight. Having gone so far he must go further and drive away Prince Aglipogue. Then every one would be happy—that is, every one except herself and Terry. She was no longer sure that Terry loved Gloria. Probably he had loved her because no man could be indifferent to Gloria, but perhaps he had resigned himself to the unromantic rôle of friend. He had suspected her of being interested in Pendragon for herself. That might mean anything—his thought might have been fathered by the hope that some one would remove Pendragon, one of his own rivals; or perhaps she had betrayed her love for him and he wanted to turn her attention toward another object, or perhaps—but men were such curious creatures and who could tell? At least he did not love her which was all that really mattered now. Nels and Dorothy could go working and playing together through the future, but she must content herself to be wedded for life to her art; and such art—newspaper cartoons!