Miss Jennings mumbled their names. “He’s a blah of purest ray serene,” she stated, almost before he was out of earshot. “The Human Lady Finger. They’re an awful mess here, except Eddie. Say, on the low down, don’t you know any boys?”
“I know Luke.” (Luke, her father’s golden lad, whom she had disappointed and denied so shabbily to-day.) She colored unhappily, the more as she found Miss Jennings’s hard little eyes upon her.
“Oh, so that’s it!” Janice pounced.
“What do you mean?”
“He’s your sweetie!”
“No. He—” She could not escape it, then. It was of no use to put on Miss Ada’s little yellow-buff crêpe de chine and come out of her cloister into the dazzle and din of the Bella Vista; the mountain of misery had come with her, moving steadily and implacably behind her, shadowing her, threatening to crush her. She was a wretched ingrate; a traitor; false to her father, and to her friend, and to herself. She got a certain comfort from putting it into determined words. “My father found Luke in the mountains, and he had the greatest faith in him. He was our nearest friend, while my father lived; he is my nearest friend now. I—some day—” she said clearly, “I will marry him.”
“Oh!” The acquaintance of her childhood considered her thoughtfully. “The plot thickens. Got it all doped out, haven’t you? Well, happy days, old thing, but I’d breeze around a little and look ’em over first! And speaking of such, did I tell you I know your boss?”
“Mr. Carey, you mean? Nancy’s father?”
“No, Peter Parker. (Sounds like ‘Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,’ doesn’t it?) You know—his dad was old Carey’s partner, and this bird inherited his share of the mill. Met him at Pasadena last winter, and we got talking about the places we went, and when I mentioned this, he mentioned the Altonia mill.”
“His mother is a remarkable woman, in her way,” contributed Mrs. Jennings. “She is president of the Federated Clubs of the whole country, and they say she’s the best woman speaker in America. Of course, that’s all very well for women who like it and haven’t any home cares. As far as I’m concerned—” she gave a delicate pat to the curl which was gummed against her temple—“I never seemed to find time for clubs.”