And Charity Coe Cheever was chattering flippantly with a group of the dispersing audience, while her heart was in throes of dismay at her own feelings and Jim Dyckman's.

THE SECOND BOOK

MRS. TOMMIE GILFOYLE HAS HER PICTURE TAKEN

CHAPTER I

The scene was like one of the overcrowded tapestries of the Middle Ages.

At the top was the Noxon palace, majestic, serene, self-confident in the correctness of its architecture and not afraid even of the ocean outspread below.

The house looked something like Mrs. Noxon at her best. Just now she was at her worst. She stood by her marble pool and glared at her mob of guests dispersing in knots of laughter and indifference. There were hundreds of men and women of all ages and sizes, and almost all of them were startling the summer of 1915 with the fashion-plates of 1916.

Mrs. Noxon turned from them to the dispersing nymphs of Miss Silsby's troupe. The nymphs were dressed in the fashion of 916 B.C. They also were laughing and snickering, as they sauntered toward the clump of trees and shrubs which masked their dressing-tent. One of them was not laughing--Kedzie. She was slinking along in wet clothes and doused pride. The beautiful wrap that Mrs. Charity Cheever had flung about her she had let fall and drag in a damp mess.

Mrs. Noxon was tempted to hobble after Kedzie and smack her for her outrageous mishap. But she could not afford the luxury. She must laugh with her guests. She marched after them to take her medicine of raillery more or less concealed as they went to look at the other sideshows and permit themselves to be robbed handsomely for charity.

Kedzie was afraid to meet Miss Silsby, but there was no escape. The moment the shrubs closed behind her she fell into the ambush. Miss Silsby was shrill with rage and scarlet in the face. She swore, and she looked as if she would scratch.

"You miserable little fool!" she began. "You ought to be whipped within an inch of your life. You have ruined me! It was the biggest chance of my career. I should have been a made woman if it hadn't been for you.

Now I shall be the joke of the world!"

"Please, Miss Silsby," Kedzie protested, "if you please, Miss Silsby--I didn't mean to fall into the water. I'm as sorry as I can be."

"What good does it do me for you to be sorry? I'm the one to be sorry. I should think you would have had more sense than to do such a thing!"

"How could I help it, dog on it!" Kedzie retorted, her anger recrudescent.

"Help it? Are you a dancer or are you a cow?"

Kedzie quivered as if she had been lashed. She struck back with her best Nimrim repartee, "You're a nice one to call me a cow, you big, fat, old lummox!"

Miss Silsby fairly mooed at this.

"You--you insolent little rat, you! You--oh, you--you! I'll never let you dance for me again--never!"

"I'd better resign, then, I suppose," said Kedzie.

"Resign? How dare you resign! You're fired! That's how you'll resign.

You're fired! The impudence of her! She turns my life-work into a laughing-stock and then says she'd better resign!"

"How about to-night?" Kedzie put in, dazed.

"Never you mind about to-night. I'll get along without you if I have to dance myself."

The other nymphs shook under this, like corn-stalks in a wind.

But Kedzie was a statuette of pathos. She stood cowering barelegged before Miss Silsby, fully clothed in everything but her right mind.

There was nothing Grecian about Miss Silsby except the Medusa glare, and that turned Kedzie into stone. She finished her tirade by thrusting some money into Kedzie's hand and clamoring:

"Get into your clothes and get out of my sight."

Rage made Miss Silsby generous. She paid Kedzie an extra week and her fare to New York. Kedzie had no pocket to put her money in. She carried it in her hand and laid it on the table in the tent as she bent to whip her lithe form out of her one dripping garment.

The other nymphs followed her into the tent and made a Parthenonian frieze as they writhed out of their tunics and into their petticoats.

They gathered about Kedzie in an ivory cl.u.s.ter and murmured their sympathy--Miss Silsby not being within ear-shot.

Kedzie blubbered bitterly as she glided into her everyday things, hooking her corsets askew, drawing her stockings up loosely, and lacing her boots all wrong. She was still jolted with sobs as she pushed the hat-pins home in her traveling-hat.

She kissed the other girls good-by. They were sorry to see her go, now that she was going. And she was very sorry to go, now that she had to.

If she had lingered awhile Miss Silsby would have found her there when she relented from sheer exhaustion of wrath, and would have restored her to favor. But Kedzie had stolen away in craven meekness.

To reach the trade-entrance Kedzie had to skirt the accursed pool of her destruction. Charity Coe was near it, seated on a marble bench alone.

She was pensive with curious thoughts. She heard Kedzie's childish snivel as she pa.s.sed. Charity looked up, recognized the girl with difficulty, and after a moment's hesitation called to her:

"What's the matter, you poor child? Come here! What's wrong?"

Kedzie suffered herself to be checked. She dropped on the bench alongside Charity and wailed:

"I fell into that d.a.m.n' pool, and I've lost my jah-ob!"

Charity patted the shaken back a moment, and said, "But there are other jobs, aren't there?"

"I don't know of any."

"Well, I'll find you one, my dear, if you'll only smile. You have such a pretty smile."

"How do you know?" Kedzie queried, giving her a sample of her best.

Charity laughed. "See! That proves it. You are a darling, and too pretty to lack for a job. Give me your address, and I'll get you a better place than you lost. I promise you."

Kedzie ransacked her hand-bag and found a printed card, crumpled and rouge-stained. She poked it at Charity, who read and commented:

"Miss Anita Adair, eh? Such a pretty name! And the address, my dear--if you don't mind. I am Mrs. Cheever."

"Oh, are you!" Kedzie exclaimed. "I've heard of you. Pleased to meet you."

Then Kedzie whimpered, and Charity wrote the address and repeated her a.s.surances. She also gave Kedzie her own card and asked her to write to her. That seemed to end the interview, and so Kedzie rose and said: "Much obliged. I guess I gotta go now. G'-by!"

"Good-by," said Charity. "I'll not forget you."

Kedzie moved on humbly. She looked back. Charity had fallen again into a listless reverie. She seemed sad. Kedzie wondered what on earth she could have to be sorry about. She had money and a husband, and she was swagger.