“I don’t care what it is,” came tenderly. “My name for you is the same as your mother’s—‘Baby!’”
[268]
]CHAPTER III
“Gracie deah—will you gaze!”
Miss Mallard’s wide, wondering orbs, accompanied by Grace’s, turned toward the door. Sallie MacMahon had just entered, resplendent in spring outfit. Above slim ankles billowed a skirt of silk the color of her eyes. The ankles ended in slippers mounted with buckles of cut steel. Her arms gleamed white through transparent clinging sleeves. A necklace of pearls clasped her throat and over the golden head brimmed a wide hat weighted with roses.
She disrobed nonchalantly, hanging her garments against the sheet that ran round the wall for their protection. She pretended not to see the nudges of the girls but her heart sang a paean of triumph.
Now they would stop laughing at her!
Now they would treat her with respect!
Yea—weep for her, ye wise ones! Sallie’s day had come. She had fallen from grace. Worse, actually reveled in her downfall! That very morning, without a struggle, she had gone to the bank and wantonly depleted her little horde. There had followed a wild debauch of spending such as her own mother had indulged in years before. Silks, laces, chiffons, feathers! Shades of Scotland, the Irish had won out!
And having recklessly started at high speed, she could not stop. She had no desire to. Ridicule she might have endured indefinitely, but nightly to sit opposite to [269] ]Mr. James Fowler Patterson in his perfectly tailored clothes, conscious of the variety and extent of them, that had been the straw that broke the backbone of resistance.
Once and once only had Mr. Jimmie essayed the rôle of godfather. Reaching home one evening after a long drive in the moonlight, he had followed her up the ladder-like steps to the dim vestibule. Standing there, he had clasped quickly round her wrist a narrow glittering bracelet.