In the past few months it was curious how often he had found himself wondering what had become of the girl. He recalled her having run away several years before to make her first stage appearance and then their meeting in Margaret Adams’ drawing room in London later on. Well, perhaps curiosity was not alone a feminine trait of character, for Richard Hunt felt convinced he would be more at peace with himself and the world when he had learned Polly’s story from her own lips.
CHAPTER XII—After Her Fashion Polly Explains
The next afternoon a dark-haired woman a little past thirty came into the boarding house sitting room to see Richard Hunt before Polly made her appearance.
“I am Mrs. Martins, Miss O’Neill’s chaperon,” she explained. “Or if I am not exactly her chaperon at least we are together and I am trying to see that no harm befalls her. No, she is not calling herself by her own name, but she will prefer to give you her own reason for that. I have met her mother several times, so that of course I understand the situation.” Mrs. Martins was a woman of refinement and of some education and her pronunciation of her own name showed her to be of French origin.
Already the situation was slightly less mystifying. Yet there was still a great deal for Polly to make clear if she chose to do so. However, it was curious that she was taking so long a time to join them.
Mrs. Martins continued to talk about nothing in particular, so it was evident that she intended making no betrayals. Now and then she even glanced toward the door in some embarrassment, as though puzzled and annoyed by her companion’s delay. And while Richard Hunt was answering her politely if vaguely, actually he was on the point of deciding that Polly did not intend coming down stairs at all. Well perhaps it would serve him right, for what authority did he have for forcing the girl’s confession? And she was certainly quite capable of punishing him by placing him in an absurd situation.
Nevertheless nothing was farther from Polly O’Neill’s intention at the present moment. She was merely standing before her mirror in her tiny upstairs bedroom trying to summon sufficient courage to meet her guest and tell her story.
Once or twice she had started for the door only to return and stare at herself with intense disapproval. She had rubbed her cheeks with a crash towel until at least they were crimson enough, although the color was not very satisfying, and she had arranged her hair three times, only to decide at the last that she had best have left it alone at first.
Now she made a little grimace at her own image, smiling at almost the same instant.
“My beloved Princess or Mollie, I do wish you could lend me your good looks for the next half hour,” she murmured half aloud. “It is so much easier to be eloquent and convincing in this world when one happens to be pretty. But I, well certainly I would serve as a perfect illustration of ‘a rag and a bone and a hank of hair’ at this moment if at no other.”