Mrs. Lenox came up crying, "Come, my triple alliance, Frank has carried Miss Quincy off to the billiard-room to give her a lesson. Let us go, too, to see that they do not get into mischief."

d.i.c.k hurried away to usurp Mr. Lenox's place, Madeline tucked her arm through that of Mrs. Lenox, and Norris was left to follow in outer darkness.

When bedtime came, Norris detained Percival.

"Come out for a smoke and a turn," he said. "The night is frosty, and you'll sleep all the better for a sniff of fresh air."

"What are you so glum about?" he asked, as d.i.c.k tramped in silence.

He was moody and enraged himself, but too proud to let his anger be seen.

"Not mad, most n.o.ble Norris, only thinking."

"Unfold your thoughts."

"I was thinking about Madeline," answered d.i.c.k, and Norris' heart thumped, for he too was thinking about Madeline. "I wonder if the kind of training that she and all girls of her cla.s.s get is the thing, after all. I'm not talking about knowledge, you understand. I'm not such a cad as to grudge a girl the best there is in the world. But there's something else. It's the electric feminine, I suppose, that makes them the powers behind every throne. Fate is always represented in petticoats, you know. It sometimes seems as though the better-trained girls had all that side of them kept out of sight and polished into nothingness. Why are they taught to ignore the biggest power that's in them? Why, even that untrained little Miss Quincy is vivid with some s.e.x-fascination that the more fortunate girls do not often have."

"Oh, she is only a colored light. The sunlight has all other colors latent in itself. How do you dare to make any comparison between Miss Quincy and your lovely Miss Elton?"

"Great Scott! Don't say 'my Miss Elton'!" d.i.c.k exclaimed. "Madeline doesn't belong to me." And he added politely, "Worse luck! She and I have always been like brother and sister. That's all there is to it."

"Are you sure?" demanded Ellery, with hot thrusts of mingled anguish and exultation stabbing through his bosom.

"Sure!" said d.i.c.k equably. "Why, even if I loved her, my dear fellow, I should know, from her unruffled serenity, that there was no hope for me.

But Madeline isn't a very emotional creature, Ellery. She has too much brains for that,--a girl to cheer but not inebriate."

"I don't want a girl to make me drunk," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Norris.

"Well, I do," rejoined d.i.c.k.

"And though Miss Elton's emotions do not lie on the surface, I'll warrant they are there," Ellery went on as though letting off pent-up steam. "They are like her voice--like all her motions--neither loud nor faint, but exquisitely modulated. She seems to me like the embodiment of innocence,--not the innocence of ignorance, but the untaintedness of a mind that goes through the world selecting the best, as the bee takes honey and leaves the rest. There's no subject, so far as I can see, on which she is afraid to think; but I can not imagine that any subject would leave a deposit of mire in her mind."

"Gee whizz!" scoffed d.i.c.k. "How fluent your year of journalism has made you! What a great thing it is to be a serious-minded young man with eye-gla.s.ses, engaged, while yet in youth, in molding public opinion through the mighty agent of the press! And Madeline is another of the same kind."

"I wish I were of her kind," said Ellery stiffly. "You may poke fun at me as much as you like, d.i.c.k, but it's beneath you to jeer at her."

"You old duffer, aren't you two the best friends I have in the world? I like the clear and frosty mountain peaks."

"How did you find out about Barry?" Ellery asked abruptly.

"I do not have to tell you any more than Madeline." Seeing the grim look on Norris' face, d.i.c.k went on, "Let's go in and to bed. We seem to rub each other the wrong way to-night. If we don't separate soon we shall be having a French duel."

CHAPTER XII

AN ENGAGEMENT

The gates of the delectable world, it seemed to Lena, opened very slowly, and the mild fragrance and warmth that dribbled out to her through their narrow crack intensified her outer dreariness. Once in a while Mrs. Lenox or Miss Elton did her some little kindness.

Occasionally Mr. Percival came to see her, but her shame of her mother and her home made these visits a doubtful pleasure. The sordid monotony of her work oppressed her every morning and depressed her every night.

The little money that she earned fell like a snow-flake into the yawning furnace of her desires. Bitter is the fate of her to whom the goods of this world are the final good, and to whom those goods are denied.

There came a night when a certain great lady gave a dance, and Lena was deputed by the feminine head of the staff of the _Star_ to report these doings of society. At first the chance looked to her delightful. She was to have a peep into the world of charm which was her dream and her ambition. She walked through the wide empty rooms with their soft lights and ma.s.ses of flowers. She surveyed the dining-room, a wilderness of candles, orchids and maiden-hairs. She felt her feet sink luxuriously into the rugs, oh, so different from the threadbare ingrain carpet at home! She peeped into the ball-room, smilax-draped and glowing as if eager to welcome the guests to come. Through it all she carried a prim air, making businesslike notes on her little pad; but beneath her very demure exterior raged a storm of rebellion that these things should be and not be for her. The world was one huge sour grape; and yet she must smile as though it tasted sweet. There were blurs in her eyes as she stumbled up the back stairs, whither her way was pointed, that she might stand in a corner of the dressing-room where the now fast-arriving ladies were laying off their wraps. She swallowed a lump in her throat and winked hard in the attempt to forget or ignore the careless looks thrown at her by these ladies, as the maids removed the long cloaks made more for splendor than for warmth, or drew up the gloves on bare arms less lovely than her own. Many of the women looked twice at her, and she thought, and resented the fact, that they were surprised to see so much beauty. She could not be impersonal like the other reporters,--sensible girls, taking all this as a part of the day's work, and whispering names to one another, which Lena, too, must catch and treasure for her reportorial harvest. She must glance with swift inclusiveness at the more striking gowns, that later she may serve them up in the technical slapdash of the social column.

An hour of it left her faint and sick, not with cynical scorn of the spectacle, but with longing and self-pity. The crowd in the dressing-room was thinning now, but, whether she had finished her duty or not, she must escape. She could endure it no longer. Again she made her way down the narrow non-angelic stairs and out at a little side door. The night air was sweet and cold. She paused for a moment under the light of the porte-cochere to watch the string of carriages and the swirl of silk and laces that pa.s.sed through the opening door, to listen to gusts of music that came to an abrupt end as the outside door shut on her.

Suddenly a figure loomed beside her, and she look up to see d.i.c.k Percival, straight and big, with the electric light gleaming on his white shirt-front, where his overcoat fell back. There was an unpleasant sternness in his deeply-shadowed eyes.

"Miss Quincy!" he exclaimed. "What are you doing here!"

"I was sent to report it," said Lena weakly. "I'm going home now."

"Going home alone? Nearly midnight?"

"What else can I do? It's what the other girls--reporters, I mean--have to do."

"I shall walk home with you," said d.i.c.k sharply, and he drew her aside into the shadow, as though ashamed of being seen, and piloted her in silence to the sidewalk. Lena gave a little sob as he drew her arm through his, and still they walked on until the lights of the great house grew dim in the distance and only the quiet of the city streets by night enveloped them.

"Ought you not to go back now? You'll lose all the pleasure," said Lena timidly.

"Are you doing much of this kind of thing?" d.i.c.k demanded.

"This is the first time."

"I hope it will be the last," he answered glumly.

"So do I--I don't like it," whispered Lena.

"I--I can't endure it--Lena!" Lena started as she heard her name. "Lena, come over here into the park for just a moment. I want to talk to you."

"I can't. It's awfully cold, and--" said Lena, but she followed his lead as she remonstrated.

"And you have on a wretched little thin coat. Why aren't you decently dressed?"

"I haven't anything." Lena spoke under her breath. d.i.c.k stamped his foot as a subst.i.tute for a curse, whipped off his heavy great-coat, wrapped her in it, and pushed her down on to a bench.

"Lena," he said, standing squarely in front of her, "I know I've no right to hope for anything--no right to speak, even, when you know me so little; but, by Heaven, I can't endure to see you grinding out your life in this way, when there's even a chance that you will let me prevent it.

You flower of a girl, you! Oh, Lena, I love you--I love you!"

He caught a small white hand that held together the heavy coat, and kissed it in a kind of frenzy, while Lena, rigid with desire to be quite sure what this signified, peered stolidly at him from over the big collar. She was too wise in her generation to leap to conclusions about the ultimate meaning of d.i.c.k's pa.s.sion. She would not unbottle any emotion until she knew.

"Lena, if you could see how I love you, you'd trust me, I think, even with yourself. If you will be my wife--"

Something in Lena seemed to break, and she gave a gasp of relief and grat.i.tude that was almost prayer and approached love. Then she buried her face in her hands and sobbed aloud, as d.i.c.k put both arms around her and drew her head to his shoulder.

"Lena, can you--do you love me a little?" he whispered, as if in awe.