Now Arethusa's rearing by Miss Eliza had been according to a few very simple Rules for Conduct, which were nevertheless as ironbound and unalterable as the most complicated laws that were ever framed. And one of those Rules was that no really Nice girl would ever permit herself to be kissed by a man unless she had every intention of marrying him immediately or was already married to him. Miss Eliza had often said that she would far rather see Arethusa dead and cold in her coffin than to see her the sort of girl who thought so little of herself as to kiss a man she was not to marry. This was really at the bottom of Arethusa's expressed objection to being kissed by Timothy on those occasions when such unexpected conduct of his had so displeased her. She had no intention of ever marrying Timothy, whatever his own intentions might have been; therefore, it seemed to Arethusa, according to this Miss Elizian Guide for the Proper Behavior of Nice Young Ladies, it was wrong for him to salute her in any such fashion, or for her to permit him to. It is true that she had kissed Timothy herself under the stress of such excitement as arrivals and departures, but such salutations were really in a cla.s.s quite apart, and of their own.

Into the Kiss she had given Mr. Bennet, Arethusa had put her construction of the meaning of his unexpected action founded upon these ideas of kisses, and her sentiments in regard to him, and all the thoughts and dreams about him in which she had linked their two selves together: only to find that Mr. Bennet himself had no such ideas of kisses, and had evidently had no such thoughts and dreams. Is there any one to wonder at her sudden feeling of humiliation? She rubbed fiercely at her lips with the back of one hand, as if to remove the visible and outward sign of her feeling of Disgrace. Then the color surged back into her face; and once more, hot Rage mounted high, flashing its signal from her stormy eyes and quick breathing.

"I hate you!" she exclaimed, suddenly, "Oh ... _I hate you_!"

"Please listen to me just a moment, Arethusa. I...."

"Don't say anything to me!" She stamped one foot with angry emphasis.

"I won't listen! I don't want to hear anything you have to say! And Timothy was exactly right about you! Oh...!"

She flung herself face downward on the rose-colored sofa and began to sob violently, her shoulders quivering; burying her head farther and farther back into the corner of the sofa until it seemed more like a piled up heap of party finery huddled there than an actual girl.

This was truly Dreadful!

Mr. Bennet stood, man-fashion, helplessly above her, with an overpowering desire to flee far from those tears; and yet with a strong conviction, at the same time, that he ought to stay and at least attempt a justification of what had been so sadly misconstrued, if there was any earthly way in which it could be justified. He was willing to say, or to do, anything which she might demand of him, to straighten it out. The sobs decreased in intensity and so Mr. Bennet spoke.

"Arethusa...." he began.

Then Arethusa's sobs stopped altogether as abruptly almost as they had begun, and she rose majestically from the sofa, keeping her tear-stained face averted.

"I asked you not to speak to me. And I'm going home," not once did she look, even in his direction. "By myself," she added, positively.

"I can't let you do a thing like that...."

"It has nothing whatever to do with what _you_ can't let, and I shall scream out loud right here, if you start to try to follow me!"

"Will you let me apologize then, at least, before you go? If you insist on going?"

"No, you can't apologize. I don't want a single one of your apologies."

Mr. Bennet felt as weak as the proverbial water in the face of such personified determination as was Arethusa. He meekly permitted her to leave the little recess of palms and to fly across the ball room floor while he stood as one hypnotized without moving. When he had recovered his powers of locomotion sufficiently to follow, she was just coming out of the dressing room door wrapped in her green cloak. The sight of the green cloak almost unnerved him again. He had not dreamed that the child would carry out her wild plan of going home. He had thought that she might retire to the dressing-room for awhile, but that she would surely recover before many moments were flown. He took one or two half-hearted steps forward. The Wonderful Mr. Bennet had no precedent established for his guidance in this predicament. He was all at sea; no such situation had ever befallen him before. Arethusa was the only lady he had ever taken to a Party who had gone home without him. Would decided pursuit be too undignified; or could he risk a Scene?

Arethusa caught a glimpse of him in his uncertain regard of her, as he stood near the ball-room entrance, and off she flew like the wind in the direction she judged the stairs to be, luckily finding them right there; for she could not risk the waiting for the elevator to come up and get her. He should not be given the slightest opportunity to speak to her again!

She plunged madly down one long flight of wide steps, broken by several landings, to find herself in the wide old lobby, where the startled night clerk was aroused from his dozing, for this ancient inn was far from lively at this hour of the night especially in this part of it, by her sudden entrance; and he went to hunt for Clay at her breathless request. Very fortunately, for Arethusa's impulsive departing, he had not driven off anywhere, but was easily located by the obliging clerk among a small group of chauffeurs who were lounging in the barber shop; while Arethusa waited impatiently in the lobby, casting fearful glances in the direction of first the stairs and then the elevator, fully expectant of seeing Mr. Bennet appear from either direction. Clay was slightly mystified at this sudden summons, so early in the evening, but like a good chauffeur and the friend of Arethusa's which he so truly was, he asked no questions; and unfastened the back door for her, having driven in the back way without a word of comment. Arethusa knew that Ross and Elinor would still be up at this early hour, within hearing of the opening of the front door, and she wanted to slip into the house without their knowledge. She was quite sure that their interrogations would fall fast and furious; a natural curiosity which would have to be gratified as to the Reason for this unexpectedly early return from the Real Event of the Season.

It was a Silent and Miserable Maiden who thus went home so prematurely from what was to have been the most Marvelous Affair ever attended, huddled back into one corner of the limousine; and it was a still more Silent and Miserable Maiden who crept softly up the back stairs and sought her room, where she undressed entirely in the dark and climbed immediately into bed.

And the grey hours of the dawning found her still wakeful under the same green silk coverlid beneath which she had slept so many, many nights with Happy Dreaming of the Wonderful Mr. Bennet and his very great Charm.

CHAPTER XXIII

This was the very first night in all of her healthy young life that Arethusa did not go to sleep just as soon as her head had touched the pillow.

Over and over again her active imagination re-lived for her that scene with Mr. Bennet, and her whole body seemed to burn with the Disgrace of his Kiss. She writhed and twisted and turned in her bed, but she could not get away from the Shame of it, anywhere; and the way Mr. Bennet had looked when he had said she had misunderstood him.

Miss Eliza's convictions upon all subjects were most decided, but on no single subject were they more decided than on this very one of a Kiss.

No Decent Woman, said Miss Eliza with a terrible emphasis, would allow a man's lips to Touch hers, or permit him to embrace her, unless there were Matrimonial Intentions.

But poor Arethusa's Intentions had all been Matrimonial, however Mr.

Bennet's, for with all her heart she had given of her very best. Her shy building of air castles for the Perfect Bliss of Two, through all these golden weeks just past, superinduced, one might say, by Mr.

Bennet's att.i.tude of unmistakable delight in her companionship, had led to this catastrophe of a misunderstanding.

And as the hours wore on the feeling of humiliation at having so misunderstood with her thought that he had wanted to marry her when he had Kissed her, grew and grew until it was almost unbearable.

Then, quite suddenly, she sat bolt upright in bed. For an Idea concerning Mr. Bennet, no longer prefixed the Wonderful, had wormed itself into her brain without her having the slightest conception how it had got there, and now it presented itself to her, fully formed.

_Mr. Bennet was very decidedly one of the very sort of men Miss Eliza had been so careful to warn her against!_

He was one of those Awful Male Beings who were nice to girls to win their affections, only to deceive them!

No one in the world could have been nicer to any girl than Mr. Bennet had been to her! And he had most certainly won her Affections! And she had most certainly been completely deceived! His had been the Kiss of a Judas! So Arethusa would undoubtedly have named it had she known any of the cla.s.sification of Kisses. But one thing about the Whole Affair loomed Large and Certain; she had gone contrary to Miss Eliza's Expressed Wishes once more! And this time, it was with what Dire Results!

This made it twice that she had lapsed from the path pointed out for her treading in her intercourse with the members of the other s.e.x; the man on the train, and now ... Mr. Bennet! The man of the train appeared before Arethusa at the moment. She had thought him such a nice man, until superior wisdom had informed her differently. Yet that affair had ended comparatively smoothly, thanks to Mrs. Cherry. There was no punishment Miss Eliza could fairly inflict for that, beyond scolding a little. But this! What would Miss Eliza ever do if she found this out?

And Arethusa had thought Mr. Bennet a Nice man also. Nay, more than merely nice; he had seemed Perfect. It was quite plain to Arethusa that she knew nothing whatever about men. The best thing for her to do hereafter would be walk in directions where they were not to be found.

Arethusa decided, going back to the very beginning for about the hundredth time, and reviewing this Affair in this new light of Miss Eliza's regard of it, that her lips had best be locked so closely together in regard to her Fall from Grace that Inquisitional Torture would not be strong enough to force it from her.

No, whatever happened hereafter under her eagle eye that so little escaped, to cause the pouring forth of the vials of her wrath upon Arethusa's head, Miss Eliza must never, never know of the Bennet Escapade. And further considering It, from the other angle of her deep humiliation of having misunderstood, she also decided that no human being should ever learn, from her own lips, of the Great Shame that had befallen the daughter of the House of Worthington this Fatal Evening of the January Cotillion.

The first wan light of dawn struggling through her half drawn blinds found Arethusa thus, still wakeful, and still miserably thoughtful; but a little while after she had heard the first milkman's cart rattle past in the street, she fell into a troubled slumber of vague, unpleasant dreams that made her toss and mutter in her sleep. They were Dreams of Miss Eliza's fury in a personified form, and of Mr. Bennet, cloven-hoofed, with horns upon his handsome head and grinning as diabolically as any fiend (that half-sad, half-sweet smile of his she had so loved distorted thus!) both of which phantoms pursued her wheresoever she fled in her dreaming to escape them, even to the uttermost parts of the earth; sometimes they were together in pursuit, and sometimes they pursued singly. But they gave her no chance to get away from either of them.

She slept straight on through the breakfast hour, for they rarely disturbed her when she had been to a party the night before, and did not waken until nearly noon. Then for a long while she lay there conscious that something Terrible had happened to her, but not wholly conscious, through the heaviness of her waking, just what it was. But it dawned upon her fully in time, and she turned and buried her face in her pillow with a little miserable cry.

It was the greyest sort of day, a real January day, with leaden clouds that hung low to the earth. Snow clouds, they would have called them at the Farm. When Arethusa looked out of the window, she was glad that the sun was not shining: for what a mockery of Absolute Unhappiness a sunshiny day would have seemed!

She dragged herself out of bed, and dressed herself slowly; it was as if she were trying to postpone her inevitable appearance in public as long as possible. When she had finished she stood and stared intently at herself in the mirror. In such reality were the shame and humiliation of the night just past still with her, that she could not be sure that the roundness of that Kiss did not show plainly on her lips for the observation of all beholders. But even her closest scrutiny could not detect anything actually visibly different about her mouth, though her eyes had unaccustomed deep shadows painted darkly under them, and her face looked queerly white and drawn.

Arethusa drew herself to her fullest height and shook her shoulders decidedly once or twice; Ross and Elinor must not know about This. They must not even be permitted to suspect that anything was wrong.

They were just starting luncheon when she went downstairs.

Elinor glanced at Arethusa who came slowly into the little breakfast room, where they always lunched, to greet her gayly.

"Did you have a good...." she began with eagerness, but she stopped when she noticed those dark circles under the grey eyes, and her own eyes widened in alarm, "Why, Arethusa, dearest, what on earth has happened?"

And Arethusa, completely unnerved by the kindness of the anxious tone, flew across the room and flopped down on the floor by Elinor's chair, to bury her head in Elinor's lap and weep uncontrollably.

Over her bent red head, Ross and Elinor exchanged a few eyebrow telegrams which could be translated easily as, "Gridley Bennet."

No one spoke to the sorrowing Arethusa though, and her mother stroked her hair softly to help her somewhat toward a recovery. But after awhile m.u.f.fled words became distinguishable through the sobs.

"I want to go home! Oh, I want to go home! Mayn't I go home?"

"Do you mean back to the Farm, dear?" asked Elinor, with a nod in Ross's direction which meant that she was quite sure that Mr. Bennet _was_ at the bottom of all this suffering.