Polly called her a once unmentionable name that was coming into fashionable use after a long exile. Women had draped themselves in a certain animal’s pelt with such freedom and grace for so many years that its name had lost enough of its impropriety to be spoken, and not too much to express disapproval.
“You skunk!” said Polly. And Mamise laughed. Everything made her laugh now; she was so happy that she began to cry.
“Why the crocodiles?” said Polly. “Because you’re leaving me?”
“No, I’m crying because I didn’t realize how unhappy I had always been before I am as happy as I am now. I’m going to be useful at last, Polly. I’m going to do something for my country.”
She was sharing in that vast national ecstasy which is called 287 patriotism and which turns the flames of martyrdom into roses.
When Mamise reached the end of her journey she found Davidge waiting for her at the railroad station with a limousine.
His manner was studiously insulting, but he was helplessly glad to see her, and the humiliation he had suffered from her failure to keep her engagements with him in Washington was canceled by the tribute of her return to him. The knot of his frown was solved by the mischief of her smile. He had to say:
“Why didn’t you meet me at luncheon?”
“How could I prevent the Potomac from putting the old bridge out of commission?” she demanded. “I got there in time, but they wouldn’t let me across, and by the time I reached the hotel you had gone, and I didn’t know where to find you. Heaven knows I tried.”
The simplicity of this explanation deprived him of every excuse for further wrath, and he was not inspired to ask any further questions. He was capable of nothing better than a large and stupid: