Mr. Heatherford was out, but Mollie received them courteously and strove to entertain them graciously, and yet the visit was formal and constrained; for the power of thought is mightier than the tongue, and Mrs. Temple’s mental attitude, in spite of her surface smiles and volubility, made itself felt.
Phil threw something of the lover into his manner, notwithstanding the warning glance from his mother, at parting, and gave Mollie’s hand a lingering pressure that was intended to speak volumes, while he observed, as he loitered a moment after Mrs. Temple passed from the room:
“Mollie, I cannot bear to have you go like this; tell me where to address you, and I will write.”
“At the old home on Fifth Avenue, for the next week or two; more than that I cannot tell you at present,” she replied.
“All right; you will hear from me very soon, and you must write me an explanation of this sudden flitting—I do not understand it at all,” Phil observed as, with another hand-clasp, he hurried away at his mother’s call from the hall.
To do him justice, he was somewhat in the dark regarding the unexpected departure of the Heatherfords. He had attended Mollie to a concert the night but one before, and, as she had known nothing of what was before her, of course nothing was said about any change, and the first intimation Phil had received was when her note had come announcing her return to New York that evening, and requesting that the “box” be sent to the railway-station for a certain train.
When he questioned his mother, she could tell him nothing beyond the fact that she knew that Mr. Heatherford’s “venture” had failed, and she supposed he had got to get home and settle up his affairs as best he could. Mrs. Temple would gladly have escaped the ordeal of a leave-taking, but she knew she could not do so without violating all rules of courtesy and decency; so, calling upon Phil to attend her, and thus prevent a “private interview and all nonsense” between the young couple, she made her farewell call.
Mollie and her father left on one of the Sound boats that same evening, arriving in New York the following morning, when they repaired at once to their palatial home on Fifth Avenue, and which they immediately proceeded to dismantle and make over, with most of its treasures, to Mr. Heatherford’s creditors.
Three days later all the world knew that the man had lost his all, but that he would meet every dollar of his liabilities, and thus leave a clean record and an untarnished name behind him when he should drop out of the social world, where he had so long held a prominent position.
Philip Wentworth wrote Mollie, as he had promised to do, a few days after her departure; but there was very little of the lover manifest in the studied sentences which he indited, and Mollie’s lips curled involuntarily with scorn, as, reading between the lines, she realized that she had been wiser than she knew when she had refused to commit herself by either confession or promise, to one who could not stand faithful under the frowns of misfortune.