Patty's Suitors Part 51

"Of course not. Somebody will drive me. I'll be over in fifteen minutes. Good-bye."

Patty hung up the receiver and returned to the drawing-room.

"I must go right straight away," she said, smiling at her hostess. "My joke worked a little too well, and unless I appear they're going to send out a search party after me! I told Adele her little car was here.

How did it get here, Mr. Peyton?"

"I went after it and brought it here; instead of taking it to Mrs.

Hammersmith's or whatever her name was!"

"You mean Mrs. Hemingway," said Patty, laughing, "my former mistress, who left me in her car to go in search of help."

"Yes," said Peyton. "Wasn't it lucky I came along? You little thought Farnsworth sent me, did you?"

"Indeed I didn't!" and Patty smiled at him, "and will you take me home in that little car? for I promised Adele I'd go at once."

"Of course I will," said Bob Peyton, "if you must go."

So Patty was made ready for her drive and Mrs. Brewster insisted she should wear the warm coat as the evening had grown chilly.

The whole crowd went out on the steps to see Patty off, and Mr.

Brewster tucked her in, while Bob Peyton cranked the car.

"All aboard," said Peyton, straightening himself up, at last; and then, somehow,--and Patty never knew how it happened,--somebody jumped into the seat beside her, somebody grasped the steering-wheel, and the little car flew down the road and out at the gate, and even before Patty looked up to see the face of the man beside her, she KNEW it was not Mr. Peyton!

She looked up, and saw smiling at her the blue eyes of Bill Farnsworth.

Mrs. Brewster had tied a chiffon scarf over Patty's hair, and as Patty looked up in Farnsworth's face, the moonlight illumined her own face until she looked more like a fairy than a human being.

"Apple Blossom!" said Big Bill, under his breath. "I never shall find a more perfect name for you than that! Now, tell me what it's all about.

Hurry up, we haven't much time."

"But--but I'm so surprised! Why are YOU here, instead of Mr. Peyton?"

"Because I wanted to ride home with you."

"So did he."

Farnsworth shrugged his broad shoulders, as if to say that what Peyton wanted was a matter of utter indifference to him. "Go on," he said briefly, "tell me what it's all about."

"I don't know what you mean! What's all WHAT about?"

"The way you're treating me. The last time I saw you was last winter; at the Hepworths' wedding, to be exact. We were friends then,--good friends. Then I came up here,--yesterday. I threw your own flowers in at your window, and you came and smiled at me and said you were glad to see me. Didn't you?"

"Yes," said Patty, in a faint little voice.

"Yes, you DID. And then,--then, Apple Blossom, when you came down stairs later, playing May Queen, you scarcely looked at me! you scarcely spoke to me! You wouldn't dance with me!"

"But you only asked me because--"

"Don't tell that story again! Because Adele told me to ask you, is utter rubbish, and you know it! That isn't why you wouldn't dance with me. No-sir-ee! You had some other reason, some foolish crazy reason, in your foolish crazy little noddle! Now out with it! Tell me what it is!

Own up, Posy-Face. You heard something or imagined something about me, that doesn't please your ladys.h.i.+p, and I have a right to know what it is. At least, I'm going to know, whether I have a right or not. What is it or who is it that has interfered with our friends.h.i.+p?"

Patty looked up at Bill and read determination in his face. She knew it was no time for chaffing or foolishness. So she only said, as she looked straight at him,--"Miss Morton."

"Miss Morton! for Heaven's sake, what DO you mean?"

"The girl you're engaged to."

"The girl I'm engaged to! Patty, HAVE you taken leave of your senses?"

"Well, anyway, if you're not engaged to her, you're terribly in love with her! Your whole life and love is bound up in her!"

"Patty, I've heard there is a lunatic asylum over near Scottsville, and I'm going to take you right straight over there, unless you stop talking this rubbis.h.!.+ Now, if you're still possessed of the power of rational conversation, tell me who is this Miss Morton!"

"Miss Kate Morton,--the lady you're in love with."

Patty's spirits had begun to rise, and as she said this she looked up at Farnsworth, with demure face, but with a mouth dimpling into laughter.

"Kate Morton! Why, I haven't seen her for ten years!"

"Was it a hopeless affection, then? Are you only true to her memory?"

"Patty, BEHAVE yourself! Who mentioned Kate Morton's name to you?"

"Kitty! You always call her Kitty."

Farnsworth chuckled. "Call her KITTY! why, I'd sooner call the Flatiron Building 'Kitty.' It would be about as appropriate."

"Well, anyway, you told Adele that you loved Kitty with all your heart and soul."

A great light seemed to break upon Farnsworth. He looked at Patty for a moment, with slowly broadening smile, and then he burst into irrepressible laughter.

"Oh, Patty!" he exclaimed, between his spasms of mirth; "Kitty! oh, Kitty! Patty!"

Patty sat looking at him in stern silence.

"I should think, Mr. Farnsworth, if any one ought to go to a lunatic asylum it might as well be you! You sit there like an imbecile saying, oh, Patty! oh, Kitty!"

"I don't know which I love most, you or Kitty!" and again Farnsworth went off in a roar of laughter.

"I don't care to be mentioned in connection with Miss Morton," and Patty tried her best to look like a tragedy queen.

"But it ISN'T Miss Morton, it's Kitty CLIVE."

"Adele said she couldn't remember her last name. But it doesn't matter to ME whether it's Miss Morton or Miss Clive."

"Oh, DON'T, Patty! You'll be the death of me! Why, Apple Blossom, Miss Clive,--Kitty Clive,--is--my horse!"