It Pays to Smile

by Nina Wilcox Putnam

I am aware that this performance of mine would not have been looked upon with favor by Euphemia, nor yet by the members of our home-mission sewing circle, yet my conscience was clear, and I had ever been somewhat at a loss to confine my behavior strictly within the limits of the society in which I had been reared. And furthermore, there was but little chance that the sewing circle or indeed my sister would ever learn of the incident, and as my dear father used to say, there are more Lorelei in the social sea than ever come out of it. I infer that he intended some reference to social shipwrecks.

And had my circle of acquaintances ever become aware of my behavior upon this particular occasion without clearly understanding the motive which actuated me they would undoubtedly have wrecked my standing. In point of fact they might even have done so with the fullest understanding of my motive—the act being itself father to the ostracism, if you know what I mean, and motives are seldom if ever considered when the opportunity for passing judgment occurs.

But at the moment of emerging upon the narrow ornamental balcony I was concerned with none of these possibilities, which occurred to me only at a later date. I was too thoroughly occupied with making a noiseless, inconspicuous progress, and with wondering whether the valet was high class enough to sleep with his window open. I trusted that he did so, and expected it, for he was a clean, bronzed sort of man, and in truth it would prove utter frustration for me if he should be in the habit of sleeping with it closed.

It was with something of the emotion which I fancy that a participant in a motion-picture drama must experience that I, not without some difficulty in climbing the intervening railings, approached my goal, silently as the—er—wings of night, as one might say, feeling my way along the wall and taking careful count of the windows as I went, the garden a still pool of blackness below me, in which the few scattered stars of the overcast sky found no reflection. It was really very dark for such an enterprise, and though the fact was undoubtedly of advantage in one way it made my progress uncomfortably slow, the more so as I had now no lighted window to guide me, and was compelled to advance by the sense of touch alone.

I passed the roof of the porte-cochère with success, climbed on to the ledge leading outside of the servants' wing, the letter safe within my bosom. There I began again my feeling of the window sills, this time with the added wish for clinging to them for support as well as their enumeration, for this was the most perilous portion of my undertaking, there being only a gutter along the ledge, and no railing of any sort. And after an interminable period I reached my goal—the sixteenth window. It was open!

With infinite caution I slid past the shutter, holding my breath lest I be heard; and flattening myself against the wall I extracted the letter from its hiding place and peered round the side of the aperture, doubtful how best to dispose of it soundlessly.

The casement was not only open but open to its widest capacity. And while I was rapidly considering whether I should simply lay the letter on the sill, trusting that the wind would not blow it away, or if I should drop it inside, risking some sound that might waken the sleeper, the moon slid from under a cloud, and on the instant the whole interior became visible to me.

It was empty!