"Yes. No--that is, we were expecting Mr. and Mrs. Schuyler, but I wish you would telephone them that I am quite ill--not very, you understand--a bad cold, I think, would be best. Something to keep me to my room for the day."

"Very good, ma'am. Was there anything else?"

"No--oh yes--ask Mrs. Abby to have the Louis Seize room made ready, will you?"

"Very good--and some flowers, per'aps, I suppose."

"Yes."

"Thank you."

He shuffled out, bowed under the weight of the calamity, as if he had an invisible trunk on his back. He gathered the servants in solemn conclave in their sitting-room and delivered a funeral oration over young Mr.

Jim. There were tears in the eyes of the women-servants and curses in the throats of the men. They all adored Mr. Jim, and their recent pride in his triumph over Peter Cheever was turned to ashes. He had married into the movies! They supposed that he must have been drinkin' very 'ard. Jim's valet said:

"This is as good as handin' me my notice."

But, then, Dallam was a ratty soul and was for deserting a sinking ship.

Wotton and the others felt that their loyalty was only now to be put to the test. They must help the old folks through it. There was one ray of hope: such marriages did not last long in America.

CHAPTER VII

Jim hastened to Kedzie, and she greeted him with anxiety. She saw by his radiant face that he brought cheerful news.

"I've seen mother," he exclaimed, "and she's tickled to death with your picture. She wants to see you right away. She wouldn't listen to anything but your coming right over to live at our house till we decide what we want to do."

Kedzie's heart turned a somersault of joy; then it flopped.

"I've got no clothes fit for your house."

"Oh, Lord!" Jim groaned. "What do you think we are, a continual reception? You can go out to-morrow and shop all you want to."

"We-ell, all ri-ight," Kedzie pondered.

Jim was taken aback at her failure to glow with his success; and when she said, "I hate to leave momma and poppa," he writhed.

He had neither the courage nor the inclination to invite them to come along and make a jolly house-party. There was room enough for a dozen Thropps in the big house, but he doubted if there were room in his mother's heart for three Thropps at a time, or for the elder Thropps at any time. After all, his mother had some rights. He protected them by lying glibly.

"My mother sent you her compliments, Mrs. Thropp, and said she would call on you as soon as she could. She's very busy, you know--as I told you. Well, come along, Kedzie. I'd like to have you home in time for dinner."

"You dress for dinner, I suppose."

"Well, usually--yes."

"But I haven't--"

"If you dare say it, I'll murder you. What do they care what you've got on? They want to meet you, not your clothes."

She saw that he was in no mood to be trifled with; so she delayed only long enough to fling into a small trunk a few of her best duds. She remembered with sudden joy that Ferriday had made her a gift of one or two of the gowns Lady Powell-Carewe had designed for her camera-appearances, and she took them along for her debut into the topmost world. Jim arranged by telephone for the transportation of her luggage, and they set out on their new and hazardous journey.

Kedzie bade her mother and father a farewell implying a beautiful distress at parting. She thought it looked well, and she felt that she owed to her mother her present splendor. She was horribly afraid, too, of the ordeal ahead of her. She was, indeed, approaching one of the most terrifying of duels: the first meeting of a mother and a wife.

Kedzie was not half so afraid as the elder Dyckmans were; for she had her youth and her beauty, and they were only a plain, fat old rich couple whose last remaining son had been stolen from them by a stranger who might take him from them altogether or fling him back at their feet with a ruined heart.

In her moving pictures Kedzie had played the millionairess many a time, had driven up in state to mansions, and been admitted by moving-picture butlers with frozen faces and only three or four working joints. She had played the millionairess in boudoir and banquet-hall; she had been loved by nice princes and had foiled wicked barons. She had known valets and grooms and footmen familiarly; but they had all been moving-picture people, actors like herself.

As the motor approached the Dyckman palace she recalled what Ferriday had told her about how different real life in millionairedom was from studio luxury, and she almost wished she had stayed married to Tommie Gilfoyle.

In her terror she seized the usual armor that terror a.s.sumes--bluff.

It would have been far better for her and everybody if she had entered meekly into the presence of the very human old couple at her approach, and had said to them, not in so many words, but at least by her simple manner:

"I did not select my birthplace or my parents, my soul or my body or my environment. I am not ashamed of them, but I want to make the best of them. I am a new-comer in your world and I am only here because your son happened to meet me and liked me and asked me to marry him. So excuse me if I am frightened and ill at ease. I don't want to take him away from you, but I want to love you as he does and have you love me as he does.

So help me with your wisdom."

If she had brought such a message or implied it she would have walked right into the living-room of the parental hearts. But poor Kedzie lacked the genius and the inspiration of simplicity and frankness, and she marched up the steps in a panic which she disguised all too well in a pretense of scorn that proclaimed:

"I am as good as you are. I have been in dozens of finer homes than this. You can't teach me anything, you old sn.o.bs. I've got your son, and you'd better mind your p's and q's."

Wotton opened the door and put on as much of a wedding face as he could.

Jim saw that the old man was informed, and he said:

"This is Wotton, my dear. He's the real head of the house."

Kedzie might better have shaken hands with him than have given him the curt nod she begrudged him. She looked past him to see Mrs. Dyckman, in whose arms she found herself smothered. Mrs. Dyckman, in her bride-fright, had rather rushed the situation.

Kedzie hardly knew what to do. She was overawed by the very bulk as well as the prestige of her mother-in-law. She did not quite dare to embrace Mrs. Dyckman, and she could think of nothing at all to say.

Mrs. Dyckman was impressed with Kedzie's beauty and paid it immediate tribute.

"Oh, but you are an exquisite thing! No wonder our boy is mad about you."

Kedzie's heart pranced at this, and she barely checked the giggle of triumph that bounded in her throat. But the only thing she could think of was what she dared not say: "So you're the famous Mrs. Dyckman! Why, you're fatter than momma." She said nothing, but wore one of her most popular smiles, that look of wistful sweetness that had melted countless of her movie worshipers.

She was caught from Mrs. Dyckman's shadow by Jim's father, who said, "Don't I get a kiss?" and took one. Kedzie returned this kiss and found the old gentleman very handsome, not in the least like her father.

Brides almost always get along beautifully with fathers-in-law. And so do sons-in-law. Women will learn how to get along together better as soon as it ceases to be so important to them how they get along together.

After the thrill of the first collision the four stood in silenced embarra.s.sment till Jim, eager to escape, said:

"What room do we get?"

"Cicely's, if you like," his mother answered.

Jim was pleased. Cicely was the d.u.c.h.ess of the family, and she and her duke had occupied that room before they went to England. Cicely was a war nurse now, bedabbled in gore, and her husband was a mud-daubed major in the trenches along the Somme. Jim saw that his mother was making no stint of her hospitality, and he was grateful.

He dragged Kedzie away. She was trying to take in the splendor of the house without seeming to, and she went up the stairway with her eyes rolling frantically.