Chapter 1. The Sub-Deb (cont.)

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_ CHAPTER I (CONT.)

The ball room is white, with red hangings, and looks like a Charlotte Russe with maraschino cherries. Over the fireplace they had put "Merry Christmas," in electric lights, and the chandaliers were made into Christmas trees and hung with colored balls. One of the balls fell off during the Cotillion, and went down the back of one of the girl's dresses, and they were compelled to up-end her and shake her out in the dressing room.

The favors were insignifacant, as usual. It is not considered good taste to have elaberate things for the school crowd. But when I think of the silver things Sis always brought home, and remember that I took away about six Christmas Stockings, a toy Baloon, four Whistles, a wooden Canary in a cage and a box of Talcum Powder, I feel that things are not fair in this World.

Hannah went with me, and in the motor she said:

"Oh, Miss Barbara, do be careful. The Familey is that upset."

"Don't be a silly," I said. "And if the Familey is half as upset as I am, it is throwing a fit at this minute."

We were early, of course. My mother beleives in being on time, and besides, she and Sis wanted the motor later. And while Hannah was on her knees taking off my carriage boots, I suddenly decided that I could not go down. Hannah turned quite pale when I told her.

"What'll your mother say?" she said. "And you with your new dress and all! It's as much as my life is worth to take you back home now, Miss Barbara."

Well, that was true enough. There would be a Riot if I went home, and I knew it.

"I'll see the Stuard and get you a cup of tea," Hannah said. "Tea sets me up like anything when I'm nervous. Now please be a good girl, Miss Barbara, and don't run off, or do anything foolish."

She wanted me to promise, but I would not, although I could not have run anywhere. My legs were entirely numb.

In a half hour at the utmost I knew all would be known, and very likely I would be a homless wanderer on the earth. For I felt that never, never could I return to my Dear Ones, when my terrable actions became known.

Jane came in while I was sipping the tea and she stood off and eyed me with sympathy.

"I don't wonder, Bab!" she said. "The idea of your Familey acting so outragously! And look here" She bent over me and whispered it. "Don't trust Carter too much. He is perfectly in fatuated with Leila, and he will play into the hands of the enemy. BE CAREFUL."

"Loathesome creature!" was my response. "As for trusting him, I trust no one, these days."

"I don't wonder your Faith is gone," she observed. But she was talking with one eye on a mirror.

"Pink makes me pale," she said. "I'll bet the maid has a drawer full of rouge. I'm going to see. How about a touch for you? You look gastly."

"I don't care how I look," I said, recklessly. "I think I'll sprain my ankle and go home. Anyhow I am not allowed to use rouge."

"Not allowed!" she observed. "What has that got to do with it? I don't understand you, Bab; you are totaly changed."

"I am suffering," I said. I was to.

Just then the maid brought me a folded note. Hannah was hanging up my wraps, and did not see it. Jane's eyes fairly bulged.

"I hope you have saved the Cotillion for me," it said. And it was signed. H----!

"Good gracious," Jane said breathlessly. "Don't tell me he is here, and that that's from him!"

I had to swallow twice before I could speak. Then I said, solemnly:

"He is here, Jane. He has followed me. I am going to dance the Cotillion with him although I shall probably be disinherited and thrown out into the World, as a result."

I have no recollection whatever of going down the staircase and into the ballroom. Although I am considered rather brave, and once saved one of the smaller girls from drowning, as I need not remind the school, when she was skating on thin ice, I was frightened. I remember that, inside the door, Jane said "Courage!" in a low tence voice, and that I stepped on somebody's foot and said "Certainly" instead of apologizing. The shock of that brought me around somewhat, and I managed to find Mrs. Adams and Elaine, and not disgrace myself. Then somebody at my elbow said:

"All right, Barbara. Everything's fixed."

It was Carter.

"He's waiting in the corner over there," he said. "We'd better go through the formalaty of an introduction. He's positively twittering with excitement."

"Carter" I said desparately. "I want to tell you somthing first. I've got myself in an awful mess. I----"

"Sure you have," he said. "That's why I'm here, to help you out. Now you be calm, and there's no reason why you two can't have the evening of your young lives. I wish _I_ could fall in Love. It must be bully."

"Carter----!"

"Got his note, didn't you?"

"Yes, I----"

"Here we are," said Carter. "Miss Archibald, I would like to present Mr. Grosvenor."

Somebody bowed in front of me, and then straightened up and looked down at me. IT WAS THE MAN OF THE PICTURE, LITTLE MUSTACHE AND ALL. My mouth went perfectly dry.

It is all very well to talk about Romance and Love, and all that sort of thing. But I have concluded that amorus experiences are not always agreeable. And I have discovered something else. The moment anybody is crazy about me I begin to hate him. It is curious, but I am like that. I only care as long as they, or he, is far away. And the moment I touched H's white kid glove, I knew I loathed him.

"Now go to it, you to," Carter said in cautious tone. "Don't be conspicuous. That's all."

And he left us.

"Suppose we dance this. Shall we?" said H. And the next moment we were gliding off. He danced very well. I will say that. But at the time I was too much occupied with hateing him to care about dancing, or anything. But I was compelled by my pride to see things through. We are a very proud Familey and never show our troubles, though our hearts be torn with anguish.

"Think," he said, when we had got away from the band, "think of our being together like this!"

"It's not so surprizing, is it? We've got to be together if we are dancing."

"Not that. Do you know, I never knew so long a day as this has been. The thought of meeting you--er--again, and all that."

"You needn't rave for my benefit," I said freesingly. "You know perfectly well that you never saw me before."

"Barbara! With your dear little Letter in my breast pocket at this moment!"

"I didn't know men had breast pockets in their evening clothes."

"Oh well, have it your own way. I'm too happy to quarrel," he said. "How well you dance--only, let me lead, won't you? How strange it is to think that we have never danced together before!"

"We must have a talk," I said desparately. "Can't we go somwhere, away from the noise?"

"That would be conspicuous, wouldn't it, under the circumstances? If we are to overcome the Familey objection to me, we'll have to be cautious, Barbara."

"Don't call me Barbara," I snapped. "I know perfectly well what you think of me, and I----"

"I think you are wonderful," he said. "Words fail me when I try to tell you what I am thinking. You've saved the Cotillion for me, haven't you? If not, I'm going to claim it anyhow. IT IS MY RIGHT."

He said it in the most determined manner, as if everything was settled. I felt like a rat in a trap, and Carter, watching from a corner, looked exactly like a cat. If he had taken his hand in its white glove and washed his face with it, I would hardly have been surprized.

The music stopped, and somebody claimed me for the next. Jane came up, too, and cluched my arm.

"You lucky thing!" she said. "He's perfectly handsome. And oh, Bab, he's wild about you. I can see it in his eyes."

"Don't pinch, Jane," I said coldly. "And don't rave. He's an idiot."

She looked at me with her mouth open.

"Well, if you don't want him, pass him on to me," she said, and walked away.

It was too silly, after everything that had happened, to dance the next dance with Willie Graham, who is still in knickerbockers, and a full head shorter than I am. But that's the way with a Party for the school crowd, as I've said before. They ask all ages, from perambulaters up, and of course the little boys all want to dance with the older girls. It is deadly stupid.

But H seemed to be having a good time. He danced a lot with Jane, who is a wreched dancer, with no sense of time whatever. Jane is not pretty, but she has nice eyes, and I am not afraid, second couzin once removed or no second couzin once removed, to say she used them.

Altogether, it was a terrible evening. I danced three dances out of four with knickerbockers, and one with old Mr. Adams, who is fat and rotates his partner at the corners by swinging her on his waistcoat. Carter did not dance at all, and every time I tried to speak to him he was taking a crowd of the little girls to the fruit-punch bowl.

I determined to have things out with H during the Cotillion, and tell him that I would never marry him, that I would Die first. But I was favored a great deal, and when we did have a chance the music was making such a noise that I would have had to shout. Our chairs were next to the band.

But at last we had a minute, and I went out to the verandah, which was closed in with awnings. He had to follow, of course, and I turned and faced him.

"Now" I said, "this has got to stop."

"I don't understand you, Bab."

"You do, perfectly well," I stormed. "I can't stand it. I am going crazy."

"Oh," he said slowly. "I see. I've been dancing too much with the little girl with the eyes! Honestly, Bab, I was only doing it to disarm suspicion. MY EVERY THOUGHT IS OF YOU."

"I mean," I said, as firmly as I could, "that this whole thing has got to stop. I can't stand it."

"Am I to understand," he said solemnly, "that you intend to end everything?"

I felt perfectly wild and helpless.

"After that Letter!" he went on. "After that sweet Letter! You said, you know, that you were mad to see me, and that--it is almost too sacred to repeat, even to YOU--that you would always love me. After that Confession I refuse to agree that all is over. It can NEVER be over."

"I daresay I am losing my mind," I said. "It all sounds perfectly natural. But it doesn't mean anything. There CAN'T be any Harold Valentine; because I made him up. But there is, so there must be. And I am going crazy."

"Look here," he stormed, suddenly quite raving, and throwing out his right hand. It would have been terrably dramatic, only he had a glass of punch in it. "I am not going to be played with. And you are not going to jilt me without a reason. Do you mean to deny everything? Are you going to say, for instance, that I never sent you any violets? Or gave you my Photograph, with an--er--touching inscription on it?" Then, appealingly, "You can't mean to deny that Photograph, Bab!"

And then that lanky wretch of an Eddie Perkins brought me a toy Baloon, and I had to dance, with my heart crushed.

Nevertheless, I ate a fair supper. I felt that I needed Strength. It was quite a grown-up supper, with boullion and creamed chicken and baked ham and sandwitches, among other things. But of course they had to show it was a 'kid' party, after all. For instead of coffee we had milk.

Milk! When I was going through a tradgedy. For if it is not a tradgedy to be engaged to a man one never saw before, what is it?

All through the refreshments I could feel that his eyes were on me. And I hated him. It was all well enough for Jane to say he was handsome. She wasn't going to have to marry him. I detest dimples in chins. I always have. And anybody could see that it was his first mustache, and soft, and that he took it round like a mother pushing a new baby in a perambulater. It was sickning.

I left just after supper. He did not see me when I went upstairs, but he had missed me, for when Hannah and I came down, he was at the door, waiting. Hannah was loaded down with silly favors, and lagged behind, which gave him a chance to speak to me. I eyed him coldly and tried to pass him, but I had no chance.

"I'll see you tomorrow, DEAREST," he whispered.

"Not if I can help it," I said, looking straight ahead. Hannah had dropped a stocking--not her own. One of the Xmas favors--and was fumbling about for it.

"You are tired and unerved to-night, Bab. When I have seen your father tomorrow, and talked to him----"

"Don't you dare to see my father."

"----and when he has agreed to what I propose," he went on, without paying any atention to what I had said, "you will be calmer. We can plan things."

Hannah came puffing up then, and he helped us into the motor. He was very careful to see that we were covered with the robes, and he tucked Hannah's feet in. She was awfully flattered. Old Fool! And she babbled about him until I wanted to slap her.

"He's a nice young man. Miss Bab," she said. "That is, if he's the One. And he has nice manners. So considerate. Many a party I've taken your sister to, and never before----"

"I wish you'd shut up, Hannah," I said. "He's a Pig, and I hate him."

She sulked after that, and helped me out of my things at home without a word. When I was in bed, however, and she was hanging up my clothes, she said:

"I don't know what's got into you, Miss Barbara. You are that cross that there's no living with you."

"Oh, go away," I said.

"And what's more," she added, "I don't know but what your mother ought to know about these goingson. You're only a little girl, with all your high and mightiness, and there's going to be no scandal in this Familey if I can help it."

I put the bedclothes over my head, and she went out.

But of course I could not sleep. Sis was not home yet, or mother, and I went into Sis's room and got a novel from her table. It was the story of a woman who had married a man in a hurry, and without really loving him, and when she had been married a year, and hated the very way her husband drank his coffee and cut the ends off his cigars, she found some one she really loved with her Whole Heart. And it was too late. But she wrote him one Letter, the other man, you know, and it caused a lot of trouble. So she said--I remember the very words--

"Half the troubles in the world are caused by Letters. Emotions are changable things"--this was after she had found that she really loved her husband after all, but he had had to shoot himself before she found it out, although not fataly--"but the written word does not change. It remains always, embodying a dead truth and giving it apparent life. No woman should ever put her thoughts on paper."

She got the Letter back, but she had to steal it. And it turned out that the other man had really only wanted her money all the time.

That story was a real ilumination to me. I shall have a great deal of money when I am of age, from my grandmother. I saw it all. It was a trap sure enough. And if I was to get out I would have to have the letter.

IT WAS THE LETTER THAT PUT ME IN HIS POWER.

The next day was Xmas. I got a lot of things, including the necklace, and a mending basket from Sis, with the hope that it would make me tidey, and father had bought me a set of Silver Fox, which mother did not approve of, it being too expencive for a young girl to wear, according to her. I must say that for an hour or two I was happy enough.

But the afternoon was terrable. We keep open house on Xmas afternoon, and father makes a champagne punch, and somebody pours tea, although nobody drinks it, and there are little cakes from the Club, and the house is decorated with poin--(Memo: Not in the Dictionery and I cannot spell it, although not usualy troubled as to spelling.)

At eleven o'clock the mail came in, and mother sorted it over, while father took a gold piece out to the post-man.

There were about a million cards, and mother glanced at the addresses and passed them round. But suddenly she frowned. There was a small parcel, addressed to me.

"This looks like a Gift, Barbara," she said. And proceded to open it.

My heart skipped two beats, and then hamered. Mother's mouth was set as she tore off the paper and opened the box. There was a card, which she glanced at, and underneath, was a book of poems.

"Love Lyrics," said mother, in a terrable voice. "To Barbara, from H----"

"Mother----" I began, in an ernest tone.

"A child of mine recieving such a book from a man!" she went on. "Barbara, I am speachless."

But she was not speachless. If she was speachless for the next half hour, I would hate to hear her really converse. And all that I could do was to bear it. For I had made a Frankenstein--see the book read last term by the Literary Society--not out of grave-yard fragments, but from malted milk tablets, so to speak, and now it was pursuing me to an early grave. For I felt that I simply could not continue to live.

"Now--where does he live?"

"I--don't know, mother."

"You sent him a Letter."

"I don't know where he lives, anyhow."

"Leila," mother said, "will you ask Hannah to bring my smelling salts?"

"Aren't you going to give me the book?" I asked. "It--it sounds interesting."

"You are shameless," mother said, and threw the thing into the fire. A good many of my things seemed to be going into the fire at that time. I cannot help wondering what they would have done if it had all happened in the summer, and no fires burning. They would have felt quite helpless, I imagine.

Father came back just then, but he did not see the Book, which was then blazing with a very hot red flame. I expected mother to tell him, and I daresay I should not have been surprised to see my furs follow the book. I had got into the way of expecting to see things burning that do not belong in a fireplace. But mother did not tell him.

I have thought over this a great deal, and I beleive that now I understand. Mother was unjustly putting the blame for everything on this School, and mother had chosen the School. My father had not been much impressed by the catalogue. "Too much dancing room and not enough tennis courts," he had said. This, of course, is my father's opinion. Not mine.

The real reason, then, for mother's silence was that she disliked confessing that she made a mistake in her choice of a School.

I ate very little Luncheon and my only comfort was my seed pearls. I was wearing them, for fear the door-bell would ring, and a Letter or flowers would arrive from H. In that case I felt quite sure that someone, in a frenzy, would burn the Pearls also.

The afternoon was terrable. It rained solid sheets, and Patrick, the butler, gave notice three hours after he had recieved his Xmas presents, on account of not being let off for early mass.

But my father's punch is famous, and people came, and stood around and buzzed, and told me I had grown and was almost a young lady. And Tommy Gray got out of his cradle and came to call on me, and coughed all the time, with a whoop. He developed the whooping cough later. He had on his first long trousers, and a pair of lavender Socks and a Tie to match. He said they were not exactly the same shade, but he did not think it would be noticed. Hateful child!

At half past five, when the place was jamed, I happened to look up. Carter Brooks was in the hall, and behind him was H. He had seen me before I saw him, and he had a sort of sickley grin, meant to denote joy. I was talking to our Bishop at the time, and he was asking me what sort of services we had in the school chapel.

I meant to say "non-sectarian," but in my surprize and horror I regret to say that I said, "vegetarian." Carter Brooks came over to me like a cat to a saucer of milk, and pulled me off into a corner.

"It's all right," he said. "I 'phoned mama, and she said to bring him. He's known as Grosvenor here, of course. They'll never suspect a thing. Now, do I get a small 'thank you'?"

"I won't see him."

"Now look here, Bab," he protested, "you two have got to make this thing up You are a pair of Idiots, quarreling over nothing. Poor old Hal is all broken up. He's sensative. You've got to remember how sensative he is."

"Go, away" I cried, in broken tones. "Go away, and take him with you."

"Not until he had spoken to your Father," he observed, setting his jaw. "He's here for that, and you know it. You can't play fast and loose with a man, you know."

"Don't you dare to let him speak to father!"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"That's between you to, of course," he said. "It's not up to me. Tell him yourself, if you've changed your mind. I don't intend," he went on, impressively, "to have any share in ruining his life."

"Oh piffle," I said. I am aware that this is slang, and does not belong in a Theme. But I was driven to saying it.

I got through the crowd by using my elbows. I am afraid I gave the Bishop quite a prod, and I caught Mr. Andrews on his rotateing waistcoat. But I was desparate.

Alas, I was too late.

The caterer's man, who had taken Patrick's place in a hurry, was at the punch bowl, and father was gone. I was just in time to see him take H. into his library and close the door.

Here words fail me. I knew perfectly well that beyond that door H, whom I had invented and who therefore simply did not exist, was asking for my Hand. I made up my mind at once to run away and go on the stage, and I had even got part way up the stairs, when I remembered that, with a dollar for the picture and five dollars for the violets and three dollars for the hat pin I had given Sis, and two dollars and a quarter for mother's handkercheif case, I had exactly a dollar and seventy-five cents in the world.

I WAS TRAPPED.

I went up to my room, and sat and waited. Would father be violent, and throw H. out and then come upstairs, pale with fury and disinherit me? Or would the whole Familey conspire together, when the people had gone, and send me to a convent? I made up my mind, if it was the convent, to take the veil and be a nun. I would go to nurse lepers, or something, and then, when it was too late, they would be sorry.

The stage or the convent, nun or actress? Which?

I left the door open, but there was only the sound of revelry below. I felt then that it was to be the convent. I pinned a towel around my face, the way the nuns wear whatever they call them, and from the side it was very becoming. I really did look like Julia Marlowe, especialy as my face was very sad and tradgic.

At something before seven every one had gone, and I heard Sis and mother come upstairs to dress for dinner. I sat and waited, and when I heard father I got cold all over. But he went on by, and I heard him go into mother's room and close the door. Well, I knew I had to go through with it, although my life was blasted. So I dressed and went downstairs.

Father was the first down. HE CAME DOWN WHISTLING.

It is perfectly true. I could not beleive my ears.

He approached me with a smileing face.

"Well, Bab," he said, exactly as if nothing had happened, "have you had a nice day?"

He had the eyes of a bacilisk, that creature of Fable.

"I've had a lovely day, Father," I replied. I could be bacilisk-ish also.

There is a mirror over the drawing room mantle, and he turned me around until we both faced it.

"Up to my ears," he said, referring to my heighth. "And Lovers already! Well, I daresay we must make up our minds to lose you."

"I won't be lost," I declared, almost violently. "Of course, if you intend to shove me off your hands, to the first Idiot who comes along and pretends a lot of stuff, I----"

"My dear child!" said father, looking surprised. "Such an outburst! All I was trying to say, before your mother comes down, is that I--well, that I understand and that I shall not make my little girl unhappy by--er--by breaking her Heart."

"Just what do you mean by that, father?"

He looked rather uncomfortable, being one who hates to talk sentament.

"It's like this, Barbara," he said. "If you want to marry this young man--and you have made it very clear that you do--I am going to see that you do it. You are young, of course, but after all your dear mother was not much older than you are when I married her."

"Father!" I cried, from an over-flowing heart.

"I have noticed that you are not happy, Barbara," he said. "And I shall not thwart you, or allow you to be thwarted. In affairs of the Heart, you are to have your own way."

"I want to tell you something!" I cried. "I will NOT be cast off! I----"

"Tut, tut," said Father. "Who is casting you off? I tell you that I like the young man, and give you my blessing, or what is the present-day equivelent for it, and you look like a figure of Tradgedy!"

But I could endure no more. My own father had turned on me and was rending me, so to speak. With a breaking heart and streaming eyes I flew to my Chamber.

There, for hours I paced the floor.

Never, I determined, would I marry H. Better death, by far. He was a scheming Fortune-hunter, but to tell the family that was to confess all. And I would never confess. I would run away before I gave Sis such a chance at me. I would run away, but first I would kill Carter Brooks.

Yes, I was driven to thoughts of murder. It shows how the first false step leads down and down, to crime and even to death. Oh never, never, gentle reader, take that first False Step. Who knows to what it may lead!

"One false Step is never retreived." Gray--On a Favorite Cat.

I reflected also on how the woman in the book had ruined her life with a letter. "The written word does not change," she had said. "It remains always, embodying a dead truth and giving it apparent life."

"Apparent life" was exactly what my letter had given to H. Frankenstein. That was what I called him, in my agony. I felt that if only I had never written the Letter there would have been no trouble. And another awful thought came to me: Was there an H after all? Could there be an H?

Once the French teacher had taken us to the theater in New York, and a woman sitting on a chair and covered with a sheet, had brought a man out of a perfectly empty Cabinet, by simply willing to do it. The Cabinet was empty, for four respectible looking men went up and examined it, and one even measured it with a Tape-measure.

She had materialised him, out of nothing.

And while I had had no Cabinet, there are many things in this world "that we do not dream of in our Philosophy." Was H. a real person, or a creature of my disordered brain? In plain and simple language, COULD THERE BE SUCH A PERSON?

I feared not.

And If there was no H, really, and I married him, where would I be?

There was a ball at the Club that night, and the Familey all went. No one came to say good-night to me, and by half past ten I was alone with my misery. I knew Carter Brooks would be at the ball, and H also, very likely, dancing around as agreably as if he really existed, and I had not made him up.

I got the book from Sis's room again, and re-read it. The woman in it had been in great trouble, too, with her husband cleaning his revolver and making his will. And at last she had gone to the apartments of the man who had her letters, in a taxicab covered with a heavy veil, and had got them back. He had shot himself when she returned--the husband--but she burned the letters and then called a Doctor, and he was saved. Not the doctor, of course. The husband.

The villain's only hold on her had been the letters, so he went to South Africa and was gored by an elephant, thus passing out of her life.

Then and there I knew that I would have to get my letter back from H. Without it he was powerless. The trouble was that I did not know where he was staying. Even if he came out of a Cabinet, the Cabinet would have to be somewhere, would it not?

I felt that I would have to meet gile with gile. And to steal one's own letter is not really stealing. Of course if he was visiting any one and pretending to be a real person, I had no chance in the world. But if he was stopping at a hotel I thought I could manage. The man in the book had had an apartment, with a Japanese servant, who went away and drew plans of American Forts in the kitchen and left the woman alone with the desk containing the Letter. But I daresay that was unusualy lucky and not the sort of thing to look forward to.

With me, to think is to act. Hannah was out, it being Xmas and her brother-in-law having a wake, being dead, so I was free to do anything I wanted to.

First I called the Club and got Carter Brooks on the telephone.

"Carter," I said, "I--I am writing a letter. Where is--where does H. stay?"

"Who?"

"H.--Mr. Grosvenor."

"Why, bless your ardent little Heart! Writing, are you? It's sublime, Bab!"

"Where does he live?"

"And is it all alone you are, on Xmas Night!" he burbled. (This is a word from Alice in WonderLand, and although not in the dictionery, is quite expressive.)

"Yes," I replied, bitterly. "I am old enough to be married off without my consent, but I am not old enough for a real Ball. It makes me sick."

"I can smuggle him here, if you want to talk to him."

"Smuggle!" I said, with scorn. "There is no need to smuggle him. The Familey is crazy about him. They are flinging me at him."

"Well, that's nice," he said. "Who'd have thought it! Shall I bring him to the 'phone?"

"I don't want to talk to him. I hate him."

"Look here," he observed, "if you keep that up, he'll begin to beleive you. Don't take these little quarrels too hard, Barbara. He's so happy to-night in the thought that you----"

"Does he live in a Cabinet, or where?"

"In a what? I don't get that word."

"Don't bother. Where shall I send his letter?"

Well, it seemed he had an apartment at the Arcade, and I rang off. It was after eleven by that time, and by the time I had got into my school mackintosh and found a heavy veil of mother's and put it on, it was almost half past.

The house was quiet, and as Patrick had gone, there was no one around in the lower Hall. I slipped out and closed the door behind me, and looked for a taxicab, but the veil was so heavy that I hailed our own limousine, and Smith had drawn up at the curb before I knew him.

"Where to, lady?" he said. "This is a private car, but I'll take you anywhere in the city for a dollar."

A flush of just indignation rose to my cheek, at the knowledge that Smith was using our car for a taxicab! And just as I was about to speak to him severely, and threaten to tell father, I remembered, and walked away.

"Make it seventy-five cents," he called after me. But I went on. It was terrable to think that Smith could go on renting our car to all sorts of people, covered with germs and everything, and that I could never report it to the Familey.

I got a real taxi at last, and got out at the Arcade, giving the man a quarter, although ten cents would have been plenty as a tip.

I looked at him, and I felt that he could be trusted.

"This," I said, holding up the money, "is the price of Silence."

But If he was trustworthy he was not subtile, and he said:

"The what, miss?"

"If any one asks if you have driven me here, YOU HAVE NOT" I explained, in an impressive manner.

He examined the quarter, even striking a match to look at it. Then he replied: "I have not!" and drove away.

Concealing my nervousness as best I could, I entered the doomed Building. There was only a hall boy there, asleep in the elevator, and I looked at the thing with the names on it. "Mr. Grosvenor" was on the fourth floor.

I wakened the boy, and he yawned and took me to the fourth floor. My hands were stiff with nervousness by that time, but the boy was half asleep, and evadently he took me for some one who belonged there, for he said "Goodnight" to me, and went on down. There was a square landing with two doors, and "Grosvenor" was on one. I tried it gently. It was unlocked.

"FACILUS DESCENSUS IN AVERNU."

I am not defending myself. What I did was the result of desparation. But I cannot even write of my sensations as I stepped through that fatal portal, without a sinking of the heart. I had, however, had suficient forsight to prepare an alabi. In case there was some one present in the apartment I intended to tell a falshood, I regret to confess, and to say that I had got off at the wrong floor.

There was a sort of hall, with a clock and a table, and a shaded electric lamp, and beyond that the door was open into a sitting room.

There was a small light burning there, and the remains of a wood fire in the fireplace. There was no Cabinet however.

Everything was perfectly quiet, and I went over to the fire and warmed my hands. My nails were quite blue, but I was strangly calm. I took off mother's veil, and my mackintosh, so I would be free to work, and I then looked around the room. There were a number of photographs of rather smart looking girls, and I curled my lip scornfully. He might have fooled them but he could not decieve me. And it added to my bitterness to think that at that moment the villain was dancing--and flirting probably--while I was driven to actual theft to secure the Letter that placed me in his power.

When I had stopped shivering I went to his desk. There were a lot of letters on the top, all addressed to him as Grosvenor. It struck me suddenly as strange that if he was only visiting, under an assumed name, in order to see me, that so many people should be writing to him as Mr. Grosvenor. And it did not look like the room of a man who was visiting, unless he took a freight car with him on his travels.

THERE WAS A MYSTERY. All at once I knew it.

My letter was not on the desk, so I opened the top drawer. It seemed to be full of bills, and so was the one below it. I had just started on the third drawer, when a terrable thing happened.

"Hello!" said some one behind me.

I turned my head slowly, and my heart stopped.

THE PORTERES INTO THE PASSAGE HAD OPENED, AND A GENTLEMAN IN HIS EVENING CLOTHES WAS STANDING THERE.

"Just sit still, please," he said, in a perfectly cold voice. And he turned and locked the door into the hall. I was absolutely unable to speak. I tried once, but my tongue hit the roof of my mouth like the clapper of a bell.

"Now," he said, when he had turned around. "I wish you would tell me some good reason why I should not hand you over to the Police."

"Oh, please don't!" I said.

"That's eloquent. But not a reason. I'll sit down and give you a little time. I take it, you did not expect to find me here."

"I'm in the wrong apartment. That's all," I said. "Maybe you'll think that's an excuse and not a reason. I can't help it if you do."

"Well," he said, "that explains some things. It's pretty well known, I fancy, that I have little worth stealing, except my good name."

"I was not stealing," I replied in a sulky manner.

"I beg your pardon," he said. "It IS an ugly word. We will strike it from the record. Would you mind telling me whose apartment you intended to--er--investigate? If this is the wrong one, you know."

"I was looking for a Letter."

"Letters, letters!" he said. "When will you women learn not to write letters. Although"--he looked at me closely--"you look rather young for that sort of thing." He sighed. "It's born in you, I daresay," he said.

Well, for all his patronizing ways, he was not very old himself.

"Of course," he said, "if you are telling the truth--and it sounds fishy, I must say--it's hardly a Police matter, is it? It's rather one for diplomasy. But can you prove what you say?"

"My word should be suficient," I replied stiffly. "How do I know that YOU belong here?"

"Well, you don't, as a matter of fact. Suppose you take my word for that, and I agree to beleive what you say about the wrong apartment, Even then it's rather unusual. I find a pale and determined looking young lady going through my desk in a business-like manner. She says she has come for a Letter. Now the question is, is there a Letter? If so, what Letter?"

"It is a love letter," I said.

"Don't blush over such a confession," he said. "If it is true, be proud of it. Love is a wonderful thing. Never be ashamed of being in love, my child."

"I am not in love," I cried with bitter furey.

"Ah! Then it is not YOUR letter!"

"I wrote it."

"But to simulate a passion that does not exist--that is sackrilege. It is----"

"Oh, stop talking," I cried, in a hunted tone. "I can't bear it. If you are going to arrest me, get it over."

"I'd rather NOT arrest you, if we can find a way out. You look so young, so new to Crime! Even your excuse for being here is so naive, that I--won't you tell me why you wrote a love letter, if you are not in love? And whom you sent it to? That's important, you see, as it bears on the case. I intend," he said, "to be judgdicial, unimpassioned, and quite fair."

"I wrote a love letter" I explained, feeling rather cheered, "but it was not intended for any one, Do you see? It was just a love letter."

"Oh," he said. "Of course. It is often done. And after that?"

"Well, it had to go somewhere. At least I felt that way about it. So I made up a name from some malted milk tablets----"

"Malted milk tablets!" he said, looking bewildered.

"Just as I was thinking up a name to send it to," I explained, "Hannah--that's mother's maid, you know--brought in some hot milk and some malted milk tablets, and I took the name from them."

"Look here," he said, "I'm unpredjudiced and quite calm, but isn't the 'mother's maid' rather piling it on?"

"Hannah is mother's maid, and she brought in the milk and the tablets, I should think," I said, growing sarcastic, "that so far it is clear to the dullest mind."

"Go on," he said, leaning back and closing his eyes. "You named the letter for your mother's maid--I mean for the malted milk. Although you have not yet stated the name you chose; I never heard of any one named Milk, and as to the other, while I have known some rather thoroughly malted people--however, let that go."

"Valentine's tablets," I said. "Of Course, you understand," I said, bending forward, "there was no such Person. I made him up. The Harold was made up too--Harold Valentine."

"I see. Not clearly, perhaps, but I have a gleam of intellagence."

"But, after all, there was such a person. That's clear, isn't it? And now he considers that we are engaged, and--and he insists on marrying me."

"That," he said, "is realy easy to understand. I don't blame him at all. He is clearly a person of diszernment."

"Of course," I said bitterly, "you would be on HIS side. Every one is."

"But the point is this," he went on. "If you made him up out of the whole cloth, as it were, and there was no such Person, how can there be such a Person? I am merely asking to get it all clear in my head. It sounds so reasonable when you say it, but there seems to be something left out."

"I don't know how he can be, but he is," I said, hopelessly. "And he is exactly like his picture."

"Well, that's not unusual, you know."

"It is in this case. Because I bought the picture in a shop, and just pretended it was him. (He?) And it WAS."

He got up and paced the floor.

"It's a very strange case," he said. "Do you mind if I light a cigarette? It helps to clear my brain. What was the name you gave him?"

"Harold Valentine. But he is here under another name, because of my Familey. They think I am a mere child, you see, and so of course he took a NOM DE PLUME."

"A NOM DE PLUME? Oh I see! What is it?"

"Grosvenor," I said. "The same as yours."

"There's another Grosvenor in the building, That's where the trouble came in, I suppose, Now let me get this straight. You wrote a letter, and somehow or other he got it, and now you want it back. Stripped of the things that baffle my intellagence, that's it, isn't it?"

I rose in excitement.

"Then, if he lives in the building, the letter is probably here. Why can't you go and get it for me?"

"Very neat! And let you slip away while I am gone?"

I saw that he was still uncertain that I was telling him the truth. It was maddening. And only the Letter itself could convince him.

"Oh, please try to get it," I cried, almost weeping. "You can lock me in here, if you are afraid I will run away. And he is out. I know he is. He is at the Club ball."

"Naturaly," he said "the fact that you are asking me to compound a felony, commit larceny, and be an accessery after the fact does not trouble you. As I told you before, all I have left is my good name, and now----!"

"Please!" I said.

He stared down at me.

"Certainly," he said. "Asked in that tone, Murder would be one of the easiest things I do. But I shall lock you in."

"Very well," I said meekly. And after I had described it--the Letter--to him he went out.

I had won, but my triumph was but sackcloth and ashes in my mouth. I had won, but at what a cost! Ah, how I wished that I might live again the past few days! That I might never have started on my Path of Deception! Or that, since my intentions at the start had been so inocent, I had taken another photograph at the shop, which I had fancied considerably but had heartlessly rejected because of no mustache.

He was gone for a long time, and I sat and palpatated. For what if H. had returned early and found him and called in the Police?

But the latter had not occurred, for at ten minutes after one he came back, eutering by the window from a fire-escape, and much streaked with dirt.

"Narrow escape, dear child!" he observed, locking the window and drawing the shade. "Just as I got it, your--er--gentleman friend returned and fitted his key in the lock. I am not at all sure," he said, wiping his hands with his handkerchief, "that he will not regard the open window as a suspicious circumstance. He may be of a low turn of mind. However, all's well that ends here in this room. Here it is."

I took it, and my heart gave a great leap of joy. I was saved.

"Now," he said, "we'll order a taxicab and get you home. And while it is coming suppose you tell me the thing over again. It's not as clear to me as it ought to be, even now."

So then I told him--about not being out yet, and Sis having flowers sent her, and her room done over, and never getting to bed until dawn. And that they treated me like a mere Child, which was the reason for everything, and about the Poem, which he considered quite good. And then about the Letter.

"I get the whole thing a bit clearer now," he said. "Of course, it is still cloudy in places. The making up somebody to write to is understandable, under the circumstances. But it is odd to have had the very Person materialise, so to speak. It makes me wonder--well, how about burning the Letter, now we've got it? It would be better, I think. The way things have been going with you, if we don't destroy it, it is likely to walk off into somebody else's pocket and cause more trouble."

So we burned it, and then the telephone rang and said the taxi was there.

"I'll get my coat and be ready in a jiffey," he said, "and maybe we can smuggle you into the house and no one the wiser. We'll try anyhow."

He went into the other room and I sat by the fire and thought. You remember that when I was planning Harold Valentine, I had imagined him with a small, dark mustache, and deep, passionate eyes? Well, this Mr. Grosvenor had both, or rather, all three. And he had the loveliest smile, with no dimple. He was, I felt, exactly the sort of man I could die for.

It was too tradgic that, with all the world to choose from, I had not taken him instead of H.

We walked downstairs, so as not to give the elevator boy a chance to talk, he said. But he was asleep again, and we got to the street and to the taxicab without being seen.

Oh, I was very cheerful. When I think of it--but I might have known, all along. Nothing went right with me that week.

Just before we got to the house he said:

"Goodnight and goodbye, little Barbara. I'll never forget you and this evening. And save me a dance at your coming-out party. I'll be there."

I held out my hand, and he took it and kissed it. It was all perfectly thrilling. And then we drew up in front of the house and he helped me out, and my entire Familey had just got out of the motor and was lined up on the pavment staring at us!

"All right, are you?" he said, as coolly as if they had not been anywhere in sight. "Well, good night and good luck!" And he got into the taxicab and drove away, leaving me in the hands of the Enemy.

The next morning I was sent back to school. They never gave me a chance to explain, for mother went into hysterics, after accusing me of having men dangling around waiting at every corner. They had to have a doctor, and things were awful.

The only person who said anything was Sis. She came to my room that night when I was in bed, and stood looking down at me. She was very angry, but there was a sort of awe in her eyes.

"My hat's off to you, Barbara," she said. "Where in the world do you pick them all up? Things must have changed at school since I was there."

"I'm sick to death of the Other Sex," I replied languidley. "It's no punishment to send me away. I need a little piece and quiet." And I did.

CONCLUSION:

All this holaday week, while the girls are away, I have been writing this Theme, for Literature class. To-day is New Years and I am putting in the finishing touches. I intend to have it tiped in the village and to send a copy to father, who I think will understand, and another copy, but with a few lines cut, to Mr. Grosvenor. The nice one. There were some things he did not quite understand, and this will explain.

I shall also send a copy to Carter Brooks, who came out handsomly with an apoligy this morning in a letter and a ten pound box of Candy.

His letter explains everything. H. is a real person and did not come out of a Cabinet. Carter recognized the photograph as being one of a Mr. Grosvenor he went to college with, who had gone on the stage and was playing in a stock company at home. Only they were not playing Xmas week, as business, he says, is rotten then. When he saw me writing the letter he felt that it was all a bluff, especialy as he had seen me sending myself the violets at the florists.

So he got Mr. Grosvenor, the blonde one, to pretend he was Harold Valentine. Only things slipped up. I quote from Carter's letter:

"He's a bully chap, Bab, and he went into it for a lark, roses and poems and all. But when he saw that you took it rather hard, he felt it wasn't square. He went to your father to explain and apologized, but your father seemed to think you needed a lesson. He's a pretty good Sport, your father. And he said to let it go on for a day or two. A little worry wouldn't hurt you."

However, I do not call it being a good sport to see one's daughter perfectly wreched and do nothing to help. And more than that, to willfully permit one's child to suffer, and enjoy it.

But it was father, after all, who got the Jolt, I think, when he saw me get out of the taxicab.

Therefore I will not explain, for a time. A little worry will not hurt him either.

I will not send him his copy for a week.

Perhaps, after all, I will give him somthing to worry about eventually. For I have recieved a box of roses, with no card, but a pen and ink drawing of a Gentleman in evening clothes crawling onto a fire-escape through an open window. He has dropped his Heart, and it is two floors below.

My narative has now come to a conclusion, and I will close with a few reflections drawin from my own sad and tradgic Experience. I trust the Girls of this School will ponder and reflect.

Deception is a very sad thing. It starts very easy, and without Warning, and everything seems to be going all right, and No Rocks ahead. When suddenly the Breakers loom up, and your frail Vessel sinks, with you on board, and maybe your dear Ones, dragged down with you.

Oh, what a tangeled Web we wieve,
When first we practice to decieve.
Sir Walter Scott. _

Read next: Chapter 2. Theme: The Celebrity

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