"If Adele and Walter want to know what you've done with it, tell them the truth--you've done nothing. Say you've not yet found a good chance to. Tell them where it is, but assure them it's perfectly safe there."
"Yes, Mrs. Gosnold."
Momentarily the older woman was lost in a reverie of semimalicious cast, to judge by the smile that faintly shadowed the firm lines of her handsome face.
"A surprise patty . . ." she observed obscurely.
Of a sudden, with a sort of snap, she roused herself back to more immediate issues. "Oh, come! the morning almost gone already and nothing accomplished! Off with you! But before you go, do, for goodness' sake, attend to your eyes; if some one were to see you going through the halls the way you are--it might be ruinous. Bathe them with cold water in the bath-room there--and you'll find plenty of powder and stuff on my dressing-table."
And while Sally hastened to profit by this advice, the other pursued: "You should school yourself never to cry, my girl. You're too sensitive and emotional by half. If you go on this way, at the least excuse--great Heavens! what a moist married life you'll lead! Now let me look at you. That's much better. You'll do very well--if only you've wit enough not to worry--to trust me, whatever the emergency. Now, please, get about my errands. And when you come back, tell Thomas to let me know. If I need you during the day I'll send for you."
As it happened, she didn't send for Sally before nightfall; but she kept her busy with commissions delivered by word of mouth--so busy, perhaps considerately, that the girl found little time to waste in futile fretting, but was ever conscious, when now and again her thoughts did inevitably revert to the status of her personal affairs, of contentment crooning in her heart like the soft refrain of some sweet old song.
Her social education had made a gigantic forward stride with her surprising discovery that confession is good for the soul, that honesty in all things is not only expedient but wholesome. If material advantage had accrued unto her through that act of desperate honesty, if she basked all this day long in the assurance of immunity from the consequences of her folly and imprudence, it was less with the arrogance of Fortune's favourite daughter than with the humility of one to whom life had measured out benefactions of which she was consciously undeserving. The assertion that the world owed her a living was forgotten, and if recalled, would have been revised to the sense that she owed the world the duty of honourable and conscientious living. If her temper was tolerably exalted, it was well chastened to boot.
Thanks to the tardy advertisement of the fete, the avidity of a people ever seeking some new thing, and the fame of Abigail Gosnold as an entertainer of eccentric genius, that day could hardly be said to wane; rather, it waxed to its close in an atmosphere of electric excitement steadily cumulative. The colony droned like some huge dynamo with the rumour of secret preparation against the night. Other than servants scurrying to and fro on pressing but mysterious errands, few folk were visible in the afternoon; the drives and beaches; the lawns, terraces, courts, gardens, verandas and casinos were one and all deserted.
At Gosnold House, below-stairs, in kitchens and servants' halls, and all about the grounds as well, a multitude of work-people swarmed like an invading army of ants. Astonishing feats of preparation were consummated as if by legerdemain. And though the routine of the household proceeded marvellously without apparent hitch or friction, luncheon and dinner degenerated into affairs of emptiest formality. At the latter, indeed, Mrs. Gosnold presided over an oddly balanced board; three-fourths of those present were men--fully half the feminine guests dining from trays in their rooms or else abstaining altogether in order that not one precious moment might be lost to the creation of their improvised disguises. And the talk at table was singularly disconnected, with an average of interest uncommonly low. People were obviously saving themselves up. There was no lingering over tobacco; the last course served, the guests dispersed in all haste compatible with decency.