A Daughter of the Rich Part 45

Rose flushed. "It will be best to let the matter drop, and say nothing about it," she replied in a cool, toploftical tone that amazed, as well as mystified, her little hostess.

"Why, Rose, I think Jack ought to know about it. I 'll tell him, if you don't want to."

"Thank you, Hazel, but I don't need your good offices in this matter."

Hazel rose from the rug, and going over to Rose, laid both hands on her shoulders and looked straight up into her eyes.

"Now, Rose Blossom, please don't speak to me in that way. You 're so queer! First you 're nice about Jack, and then you 're horrid; and when you 're that way, you are n't nice to _me_ a bit--and I don't like it, and I don't blame Jack for not liking it either," she added emphatically. "I remember papa said a year ago that Jack was 'all heart' for a good many girls, old and young--but I can tell you what, he won't have any for you, if you whiff round so."

Hazel in her earnestness gave Rose a little shake. Rose smiled, and, bending her head, kissed her, saying, "F. and F. and you know, Hazel."

"Oh, I know all about 'forgiving and forgetting,' but I don't like it just the same. He's my cousin and the dearest fellow in the world, and I don't like to have him treated so."

"How about his treating me?" said Rose, pointing to the innocent box of underwear, "forgetting even to look; or not caring enough, to see if I had the right package?"

"Oh, that's different--perhaps the florist made a mistake."

"The florist!" Rose laughed merrily. "I never knew that gentlemen's underwear and roses grew on the same bush.--There 's Wilkins, and I 'm not ready."

"De coachman say it's a pow'f ul col' night, an' Miss Rose bettah take some mo' wraps."

"Thank you, Wilkins," Hazel flew into the dressing-room for a long fur cloak of her mother's which she had used to wear to the dancing-cla.s.ses.

She wrapped it about Rose, who stooped suddenly and kissed her again, whispering, "Hazel, you 've all spoiled me, that's what's the matter,--but I 'll be good to Jack, for your sake as well as for my own."

"Now you 're what Doctor Heath calls papa, the most splendid fellow in the world. There now--I won't crush your gown--" A kiss--"Good-night.

You look like an angel!"

Mr. Clyde thought so, too, as he watched her coming downstairs. She slipped off the cloak as she stood beneath the soft, but brilliant hall lights. "Do I look all right?" she asked earnestly, for she had fallen into the habit, before going anywhere with him or Hazel, of asking for their criticism.

"I should say so--but where are the flowers? I miss them."

"I thought I wouldn't wear any to-night, just for a change."

"A woman's whim, Rose. But I can't say that you need them--Now, what's to pay?" he said to himself, as he helped her into the carriage. "I saw Jack at Dord's this afternoon, and, evidently, something was in the wind. I hope it has n't been taken out of his sails."

"Sumfin' mighty queah 'bout dat yere box," murmured Wilkins to himself, as he closed the door, "but Miss Rose doan' need no flow's. Nebber see sech h--Fo' de good Lawd! Wha' fo' yo' hyar? Yo' Minna-Lu,--skeerin'

mah day-lights out o' mah, shoolin' 'roun' b'hin' dat por' chair,--jes'

lake bug'lahs."

Minna-Lu gurgled. "Yo' jes' straight, Wilkins; nebber see sech ha'r.

Huccome I 'se hyar? Jes' to see dat lillum-white angel--"

"Yo' go 'long, wha' yo' b'long," growled Wilkins, not yet having recovered from his fright. And Minna-Lu went, with the radiant vision still before her round, black eyes.

Jack felt a queer tightening about his lower jaw, and one heart-throb, apparently in his throat, as he entered Aunt Carrie's reception-room.

Then, as with one glance he swept Rose from the crown of her head to the hem of her dress, a hot, rus.h.i.+ng wave of indignant feeling mastered him--he knew he had staked his all (so a man at twenty-two is apt to think) and lost. He braced himself, mentally and physically. He was n't going to show the white-feather--not he.

But Rose--Rose was mystifying, captivating, cordial, merry, and altogether charming. She knocked out all Jack's calculations as to life, love, women, girls in general, and one girl in particular, at one fell swoop. He was brought, necessarily, into unstable equilibrium, so far as his feelings were concerned--his head he was obliged to keep level on account of the various figures. Several other heads were variously askew, and would have been turned, likewise, for good and all, had the wearer of her mother's India-mull wedding-dress been possessed of a fortune.

Rose developed social powers that evening that furnished food for conversation for Aunt Carrie and Mr. Clyde, who watched her with pride and pleasure. She was evidently enjoying herself thoroughly, and her enjoyment proved contagious.

"After all," said Jack as, between figures, he found opportunity for a whispered word or two; "this is n't half so fine a dance as the one in the barn, last September."

"Why, that's just what I was thinking, myself, that very minute!"

"You were?"

"Yes."

The brown eyes and the blue ones met with such evidence of a perfect understanding, that Jack failed to see Maude Seaton, who had approached him for the purpose of taking him out in the four-in-hand.

"Oh, I beg your pardon," said Jack, starting to his feet, "it's the 'four-in-hand.'"

"Yes, and I think you 'll have to be put into the traces again," she said, with a meaning smile.

"Not I," retorted Jack, merrily, "I kicked over them nearly a year ago."

"So I heard," replied Miss Seaton, sweetly; and Jack wondered what she meant.

When Jack found himself again beside Rose, he decided that, flowers or no flowers, he would ask for an explanation. But his first attempt was met with such a bewilderingly merry smile, and such confident a.s.surance that explanations were not in order, that it proved a successful failure.

When, at last, in the early morning hours he was seated before the open fire in his bedroom, pulling away reflectively at his pipe, he had time to think it over. He came to the conclusion that it was trivial in him to have staked his all on her wearing those flowers, for she certainly--certainly had led him to think that she was anything but indifferent to him.

"That look now," mused Jack. "I don't believe that a girl like Rose Blossom would look that way if she didn't mean it--if she did n't care.

No other girl could look that way." He reached for his watch on the dressing-case. "I shall get good two hours' sleep before that early train.--What's that?" He noticed for the first time, that on the bed lay a familiar-looking box in a brown paper wrapper. In a trice he had broken the string, whisked off the cover, scattered the tissue paper right and left.--There lay the violets, white, and sweet, and almost as fresh as when he gave them his virgin kiss nearly twelve hours before.

Jack sat down stupefied on the bed. _What had he given her, anyway_?

He thought intensely for a full minute.

"Great Scott! the pajamas!" And then Jack Sherrill rolled over on the bed, ignoring the damage to dress suit and violets, and, burying his face in the pillow, gave vent to a smothered yell.

There was a merry exchange of notes between Cambridge and New York during the next two weeks, and Rose had promised to wear any flowers--and only his--he might send her for the ball at Mrs. Fenlick's the middle of February, and for which Jack was coming on. It would occur during the last week of Rose's visit, and Jack thought that possibly--possibly,--well, he could n't define just what "possibly;" but it proved to be an infinitely absorbing one, and Jack felt it was "now or never" with him.

Mrs. Heath had claimed Rose as her guest for the last three weeks, and the days were filled with pleasures. On the Sat.u.r.day before the ball, and a week before Rose was to return to Mount Hunger, two seats in a box at the opera had been sent in to Mrs. Heath from a friend.

"Look at these, Rose!" Mrs. Heath exclaimed, showing her the note.

"Just exactly what you were wis.h.i.+ng to hear, and we thought we could not arrange it for next week. That opera has been changed for to-day's matinee, and now you can hear both Lohengrin and Siegfried."

Rose clapped her hands. "I 've just longed to hear Lohengrin; Mrs. Ford and her son have played so much of it to me. I think it's perfectly beautiful."

"I 'm so sorry I can't go, dear; but I made a positive engagement for this afternoon and it must not be broken. But I 'll send round for Cousin Anna May. She does n't care much for the opera, but she will chaperone you. She 's not much of a talker either, so you can enjoy the music in peace. People chatter so abominably there."

From the moment the orchestra sounded the first notes of that pathetic and thrillingly appealing fore-word of the overture, Rose was lost to the world about her. She was glad of the darkness, glad no one could see or notice her intense absorption in the opening scene. Even when the lights were turned on between the acts, and the subdued murmur in the house rose to a confusing babble, she was living in the story of Elsa and her lover Knight. Elderly Cousin Anna May, seeing this, let her alone, thinking to herself:--"One has to be young to be so enthusiastic over this wornout theme."

The curtain fell; the house was brilliant with lights; confusion of talk, confusion of merry chat and laughter were all about Rose; but she sat unheeding, wondering if the element of evil would be turned into a factor of good. Her heart was aching with the intensity of feeling for the two lovers. Suddenly, a few words behind her arrested her attention. She sat with her back to the speakers--two girls in the next box, who had annoyed her more than once by their ceaseless, whispering gabble.

"I told Maude I did n't believe it."