"But you'll let me come and see how you are, won't you, Tom dear?" coaxed Polly, appearing at the open door.

"No! You above everyone. I'm goin' to a hozpidal as zoon ads the ambulance gomes, and I never wand to zee any ob my frien'z again. I'll leave word no one ids to gome to my funeral, eider."

"Tom, dearest, don't talk like that! Where have you been today, to catch such an awful cold in your head?" said Polly.

"Id'z my lungz, I dell you! Double pneumonia. Leabe me to my fade, and forged me, Polly!" tears rose in his eyes at this pitiful picture of his lonely demise.

But Polly was practical, and stubborn to a degree. She refused to go, and when Mrs. Latimer came back, she told her that Tom ought to be in bed and given a great big dose of quinine--then he'd be all right in the morning.

"That's exactly what we planned to do, Polly," said Mrs. Latimer. "I sent Katrina to the drugstore for the pills, just now. But you run back and enjoy yourself, dear, as you can do nothing for Tom. He's like all men--as grouchy as a bear with a sore head, the minute anything ails them."

His mother laughed, and Polly stood smiling. Tom fumed. "Was this all the sympathy he was to win for his self-appointed martyrdom?"

Just as he had lost the last vestige of hope in life, Polly said to his mother: "I haven't seen Tom before, today, to wish him a merry Christmas and to give him my present."

"Oh!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mrs. Latimer, wisely, and slipped from the room, closing the hall door very quietly after her.

Tom opened one eye and began to wonder if it was worth while--this living business? When Polly smiled so angelically upon him, in spite of his ludicrous pose and appearance, he thought he might make one more trial of temporal existence.

Then Polly said, "I am sorry I could not reach you by telephone today, Tom. I had a little surprise for you, that I'm sure you will like. Shall I show you now?"

"Maybe it ids egsadtly wha'd I wads plannig to ags you?" said Tom, sitting up with interest, and forgetting the tub of hot water with his feet slowly par-boiling in it.

"Here it is. Isn't it neat and business-like?" said Polly, as she handed him a small paste-board card.

Tom read:

"POLLY BREWSTER DECORATOR NEW YORK CITY _Representing Ashby Shops, New York and London_."

Tom's shocked surprise at the unexpected announcement, so different from what he had expected, rendered him speechless for a full minute. During this pause, Polly patted his damp hair just as she might have patted her brother John's head, or a faithful Newfoundland's s.h.a.ggy dome. This latter was Tom's thought.

The gentle touch, combined with his resentful feelings about the business announcement, made him lose all self-control. He was so furious that he could not find his voice, and if he had, his words would have been unintelligible because of the head-cold. He sprang up from the chair, forgetful of his blanket swaddlings, and the large basin in which his feet were still immersed.

He lifted his hand above his head in a melodramatic way of denunciation, but the tragic effect was completely ruined when the porcelain basin began slipping across the hard-wood floor. He wildly threw out both hands to clutch at something for support, but the low chair he had occupied was not near the dressing table nor any other article of furniture in the room.

Polly tried to save him from a fall, but he threw off her rescuing hands; and thus he was falling to his ungraceful finish, when he managed to free one foot and planted it on the rug as a balance. But the basin with its wet porcelain bottom kept sliding ever farther away, and Tom still rolled in the swaddling robes suddenly sat down unceremoniously upon the floor.

Polly faintly screamed when the basin overturned and the mustard water ran in numerous streamlets across the waxed wood and center rug. Just at this critical moment, Mrs. Latimer came back to give her son the dose of quinine.

"Why, Tom! Why are you sitting on the floor?" asked she, in amazement.

That was the last straw. Polly had to smother a laugh but Tom flared out and the thick denunciations of all the female s.e.x, particularly western girls, would have driven such a girl mad with anger. But Polly understood her friend too well to believe a word he said.

Even while he still hurled every expletive he could remember and try to enunciate, Polly sprang over to help Mrs. Latimer raise the beswaddled young man back into the chair. He fought off her a.s.sistance, but she stubbornly held on to his arms until he was seated in a proper position once more.

Then she said: "Tom dear, I'm so sorry you have had such a wretched Christmas Day. Had we but known you had such a cold we would have called and taken you home with us. But now that Christmas is over, and I haven't had time to say a word to you, I'll just whisper that, as a sort of late greeting: 'If I don't find anyone I like better than you, during the next two years, I'll make a partnership proposition to you.'"

"Oh, Bolly! Whad do you mean?" gasped Tom, expectation high once more.

"I like you better than any other friend I ever had, Tom, but I am determined to try business first. Then, in two years' time if you are still of the same mind as now, I will consider what you have so often planned. But not before then. Until that time we will be the best of good pals."

"Oh, Bolly! Whad a Gridsmad's gifd you habe giben me!" exclaimed Tom, his face shining radiantly with love and vaseline.

CHAPTER XVI

BEAUX OR BUSINESS

It was very late when the Fabian party reached home that Christmas night; thus there were no confidences given or taken between the girls until the following morning. To Eleanor's keen sight Polly appeared ill at ease; and in the morning, after breakfast, the cloud seemed heavier than before. Then Eleanor decided to find out what unpleasant experience had occurred while at Latimers.

"I had a glorious time, last night--didn't you, Poll?" began Eleanor, guilelessly.

"Oh, yes! Until poor Tom came in with that nasty cold in his head. His condition was enough to ruin any one's enjoyment, once you saw or heard him," replied Polly, absentmindedly.

"A mere cold in the head is nothing to worry about. He will probably be here, today, as fresh as ever. That is, if the quinine he took last night permits him to see straight." Eleanor laughed in order to show her friend how unconcerned she was about anything which might have happened at the Latimers.

"Had you seen him, with his feet in boiling water and mustard, his face coated with vaseline, his eyes like Bear Forks, and his temper like a sore hyena's, you wouldn't sit there and say he'd be fresh as ever today," Polly retorted with a reminiscent smile.

"It's a wonder to me that he permitted you to visit him after he had been doctored by his mother as you say he was," returned Eleanor, musingly.

"He never would have, Nolla, had I not marched right into the room without his being aware of my presence. I never even knocked, because his mother told me he was in her dressing-room, off the large room. I waited in the large room until I heard him speak, then I pretended to be surprised and pleased to find him there."

Eleanor laughed. "Yes, I can see you pretend anything, Poll. I just know your face was as serious as crepe, and your pretence a thing any child could see through."

"Now, Nolla, you are all wrong! I can prove it. But the great trouble is, how shall I get out of what Tom believes to be true? I pretended so well that I almost fooled myself into believing that I was doing right. This morning I know it is not true," said Polly, impatiently.

Eleanor now felt her curiosity rising for she realized she was on the verge of hearing what had caused Polly's concern. But she knew she must be circ.u.mspect in her replies, or her friend would take alarm and not say a word.

"Polly, there speaks the born actress. When on the stage, acting in a play, the artiste is carried away by her own depth of feeling and faith in the truth of what she is saying or doing. Now, you see, you did the same and that proves you should study stage-craft instead of interior decorating." Eleanor spoke in a jocular tone.

Polly smiled at her friend, but she was too preoccupied with her problem to pay attention to Eleanor--whether she was in earnest or whether she was speaking in fun.

Suddenly Polly asked: "Nolla, are you engaged to Paul?"

Eleanor was taken off her feet. She never dreamed of having Polly ask her bluntly about her private interests in any one.

"W-h-y, n-o-o--not ex-actly!" stammered she in reply.

Polly sat and stared at her companion as if to search out the truth. Then she said: "Have you any idea of being engaged within the next year or two?"

"Well, now, Poll," returned Eleanor, finding her depth once more, and treading water to get her breath, "you know how I admire Paul, and you also know that Paul says he loves me. That was most obvious at Dalky's party, the night Paul arrived so unexpectedly. But when you speak of engagements, I must remind you of the law you laid down for me--not to tie myself to any such entanglement until after we had had our fill of business. Am I right?"

"Exactly!" sighed Polly. "But that does not go to say that you obeyed my law. There may be a secret understanding between you and Paul, and that is what I want to hear about."

"It may be the same sort of a secret understanding as now exists between you and Tom Latimer," retorted Eleanor, taking a wild chance that such was the fact.