“Yes, Gaylord Vondeplosshe is going to be an usher.... Well, what else could I do at the last moment? Wasn’t it absurd for a grown man like Fred Jennings to go have the mumps? Gay knows everyone and I’m sure he is quite harmless.... Oh, Steve is well and terribly busy, you know. He is giving me the most wonderful present. Papa hasn’t given me his yet and I’m dying to know what it is, he always gives me such wonderful things, too.... There’s the bell. I do hope it isn’t Lois Taylor, because she always wants people to sign petitions and appear in court. It is Lois Taylor! Why didn’t you leave word to have all petitions checked with wraps?” Giggles. “Good heavens, what a fright of a hat. Well, are you ready to go down?”
Five hours later Beatrice was being dressed for the evening’s frolic, dipping into the bonbon box for a stray maple cream, and complaining of her headache. At this juncture her father tiptoed clumsily into her room and laid a white velvet jewel case on her dressing table, standing back to watch her open it.
“You dear–––” she began in stereotyped, high-pitched tones as she pressed the spring. “You duck!” she added a trifle more enthusiastically, viewing the bowknot of gems in the form of a pin––a design of diamonds four inches wide with a centre stone of pigeon’s-blood ruby. “You couldn’t have pleased me more”––trying it against her dressing gown. “See, Jody, isn’t this wonderful? I must kiss you.” She rustled over to her father and brushed her lips across his cheek, rustling back again to tell Jody that she must try the neck coil again––it was entirely too loose.
“I guess Steve can’t go any better than that,” her father said, balancing himself on his toes and, in so doing, rumpling the rug.
He was a tall, heavily built man with harsh features and gray hair, the numerous signs of a self-made man who is satisfied with his own achievements. He had often told his sister: “Bea can be the lady of the family. I’m willing to set back and pay for it. It’d never do for me to start buying antiques or quoting poetry. I can wear a dress suit without disgracing Bea, and make an after-dinner speech if they let me talk about the stockyards. But when it comes to musicals and monocles I ask to be counted out. I had to work too hard the first half of my life to be able to play the last half of it. I wasn’t born in cold storage and baptized with cracked ice the way 47 these rich men’s sons are. I’ve shown this city that a farmer’s boy can own the best in the layout and have his girl be the most gorgeous of the crew––barring none!
“This is a joy,” Beatrice was saying, rapidly, her small face wrinkled with displeasure.
She wished her father would go away because she wanted to think of a hundred details of the next forty-eight hours and her nerves were giving warning that their limit of endurance was near at hand. This big, awkward man who was so harsh a task-master to the world and so abject a slave to her own useless little self annoyed her. He offended in an even deeper sense––he did not interest her. Things which did not interest her were met with grave displeasure. Religion did not interest her; neither did Steve O’Valley’s business––her head ached whenever he ventured to explain it. She never had to listen to anything to which she did not wish to listen; the only rule imposed upon her was that of becoming the most gorgeous girl in Hanover, and this rule she had obeyed.
“Tired?” he asked, timidly.
“Dead. It’s terrible, papa. I don’t know how I’ll stay bucked up. I want to burst out crying every time a bell rings or any one speaks to me.... Oh, Jody, your fingers are all thumbs! Please try it again.”