“That, Madame, is the very foundation-stone of our enterprise.”
“Good morning, then. Perhaps, not to lose time, you might write at once to Mr. Mordaunt.”
Whatever the principal of the B. I. W. N. wrote, it brought a quick response. Mr. Mordaunt was much gratified by her efforts in his behalf, begged to inclose a photograph of his daughter, and would be in New York on Sunday for the purpose of settling preliminaries with Mrs. Spencer West.
“He is terribly business-like,” said Gwendolyn, discontentedly. “But, dear me! the girl is pretty.”
“‘Pretty’ is tame,” said Mrs. Payne, taking the picture from her friend. “She is beautiful, in a rather common way. Ugh! That frock cut half high, the hair done in a horn behind and stuck through with a dreadful ornamental pin! You should go to Paris, my dear, and put her in Pacquin’s hands. But how very mature she looks for seventeen. She is like one of our girls in her third season.”
“You can see ‘local belle’ written all over her. And those chains and rings and pins!” said fastidious Gwendolyn. “Oh! I could never do it in New York. And now to brace myself for that dreaded meeting with the fond papa!”
It was not written on the cards that the meeting in question should take place. Gwendolyn, through nervousness and a heavy cold combined, was in bed with a neuralgic headache when he came. She could hear from where she lay the clear, resonant tones, the masterful tread of the Senator, which seemed to fill up the spaces of her toy abode. She actually turned with her face to the wall, and stopped her ears with her fingers to avoid hearing more of him. Mrs. Payne scolded her afterward for her nonsense.
“I feel better satisfied, now I have seen him,” said Kate. “There is something in him—I can’t express it—that inspires confidence. He tells me the girl is motherless, and has been much indulged by her grandparents and relatives. He has been so busy with his affairs that he has seen comparatively little of her. She is affectionate and truthful, easy to lead, and hard to drive. She has never known anything but East Ephesus in her native State. She will come to you direct, and you ought to sail as early as you can.”
Gwendolyn sat up in bed. Her headache was nearly gone. A desperate resolve to do the thing thoroughly, if at all, had come into her brain.