"No, indeed--not for a hat-party."
And next day the invitations were out.
This scandalous way of bringing up an only daughter caused many people to shake their heads.
"It'll end in a peck of trouble for Mr. Ladd some day," said the old cats, with which Carthage was as liberally stocked as any other great and flourishing American city. "Mark my words, my dear, no good can come of bringing up a girl like a wild Indian, and he'll have nobody to blame but himself if she goes headlong to the bad."
CHAPTER II
At twenty, Phyllis Ladd was one of the prettiest girls in Carthage. A little above medium height, slim, dark, and glowing like a rose, she moved with that charming consciousness of beauty that is in itself almost a distinction. The French and Spanish in her mother's southern blood showed itself in her slender feet and hands, in her grace, her voice, her gentle, gracious, and engaging manners. One could not long talk to her without realizing that behind those sparkling eyes there was a fine and highly-sensitive nature, whimsical, original and intrepid; and to know her well was to perceive that she was one of those women who would love with rare intensity; and whose future, for good or evil, for happiness or disaster, was irretrievably dependent on the heart.
In a dim sort of way she had the consciousness of this herself; her flirtations went no further than to dance with the same partner three or four times in the course of the same evening; and Carthage, which gave its young people a great deal of innocent liberty--and which its young people took with the greediness of children--in time got to consider her, in spite of deceptive appearances, as being cold, proud, and "exclusive." Certainly her exclusiveness drew the line at being kissed by boisterous young men, and though their company pleased and amused her, she refused to single out one of them for any special favor.
"They are all such idiots, Papa," she said plaintively. "Aren't there any real men anywhere--real men that a girl could love?"
"I'm sure I don't know," returned Mr. Ladd. "I haven't come across one I'd trust a yellow dog to, let alone my daughter. But, frankly, I'm prejudiced on the young-man question--anybody would be who has to run a railroad with them!"
"Papa," she cried, throwing her arms around his neck, and her mood changing to one of her gayest phantasies, "let's go away together, you and I, and see if we can't find him. The Quest of the Golden Young Man! There must be one somewhere, and we'll look for him in every hidy-hole in the world--in street-cars and banks, and ice-cream places, and cellars, and factories, and mountains, and ships--just you and me, with a little steamer-trunk--and we'll run across him in the unlikeliest spot--and he may be a bandit in a cave, or a wild, roystering cow-boy shooting up one of those awful little western towns--but we'll know right off that he's our Golden Young Man--and we'll take him, and put him in a crate, and bring him home in the baggage-car, and poke him with a long sharp stick till he's willing to marry me!"