Harrison came in as Lotless left. Peggy smiled at him from the window. She had been reading aloud from a novel so garrulous that it fairly cried aloud for interruptions.
“Now, Nopper, what became of the ball I was going to give?” demanded Monty, a troubled look in his eyes.
“Why, we called it off,” said “Nopper,” in surprise.
“Don’t you remember, Monty?” asked Peggy, looking up quickly, and wondering if his mind had gone trailing off.
“I know we didn’t give it, of course; but what date did you hit upon?”
“We didn’t postpone it at all,” said “Nopper.” “How could we? We didn’t know whether—I mean it wouldn’t have been quite right to do that sort of thing.”
“I understand. Well, what has become of the orchestra, and the flowers, and all that?”
“The orchestra is gallivanting around the country, quarreling with itself and everybody else, and driving poor Gardner to the insane asylum. The flowers have lost their bloom long ago.”
“Well, we’ll get together, Nopper, and try to have the ball at mid-Lent. I think I’ll be well by that time.”
Peggy looked appealingly at Harrison for guidance, but to him silence seemed the better part of valor, and he went off wondering if the illness had completely carried away Monty’s reason.
XVI
In the Sunny South
It was the cottage of a New York millionaire which had fallen to Brewster. The owner had, for the time, preferred Italy to St. Augustine, and left his estate, which was well located and lavishly equipped, in the hands of his friends. Brewster’s lease covered three months, at a fabulous rate per month. With Joe Bragdon installed as manager-in-chief, his establishment was transferred bodily from New York, and the rooms were soon as comfortable as their grandeur would permit. Brewster was not allowed to take advantage of his horses and the new automobile which preceded him from New York, but to his guests they offered unlimited opportunities. “Nopper” Harrison had remained in the north to renew arrangements for the now hated ball and to look after the advance details of the yacht cruise. Dr. Lotless and his sister, with “Subway” Smith and the Grays, made up Brewster’s party. Lotless dampened Monty’s spirits by relentlessly putting him on rigid diet, with most discouraging restrictions upon his conduct. The period of convalescence was to be an exceedingly trying one for the invalid. At first he was kept indoors, and the hours were whiled away by playing cards. But Monty considered “bridge” the “pons asinorum,” and preferred to play piquet with Peggy. It was one of these games that the girl interrupted with a question that had troubled her for many days. “Monty,” she said, and she found it much more difficult than when she had rehearsed the scene in the silence of her walks; “I’ve heard a rumor that Miss Drew and her mother have taken rooms at the hotel. Wouldn’t it be pleasanter to have them here?”
A heavy gloom settled upon Brewster’s face, and the girl’s heart dropped like lead. She had puzzled over the estrangement, and wondered if by any effort of her own things could be set right. At times she had had flashing hopes that it did not mean as much to Monty as she had thought. But down underneath, the fear that he was unhappy seemed the only certain thing in life. She felt that she must make sure. And together with the very human desire to know the worst, was the puritanical impulse to bring it about.
“You forget that this is the last place they would care to invade.” And in Brewster’s face Peggy seemed to read that for her martyrdom was the only wear. Bravely she put it on.
“Monty, I forget nothing that I really know. But this is a case in which you are quite wrong. Where is your sporting blood? You have never fought a losing fight before, and you can’t do it now. You have lost your nerve, Monty. Don’t you see that this is the time for an aggressive campaign?” Somehow she was not saying things at all as she had planned to say them. And his gloom weighed heavily upon her. “You don’t mind, do you, Monty,” she added, more softly, “this sort of thing from me? I know I ought not to interfere, but I’ve known you so long. And I hate to see things twisted by a very little mistake.”
But Monty did mind enormously. He had no desire to talk about the thing anyway, and Peggy’s anxiety to marry him off seemed a bit unnecessary. Manifestly her own interest in him was of the coldest. From out of the gloom he looked at her somewhat sullenly. For the moment she was thinking only of his pain, and her face said nothing.
“Peggy,” he exclaimed, finally, resenting the necessity of answering her, “you don’t in the least know what you are talking about. It is not a fit of anger on Barbara Drew’s part. It is a serious conviction.”
“A conviction which can be changed,” the girl broke in.
“Not at all.” Brewster took it up. “She has no faith in me. She thinks I’m an ass.”
“Perhaps she’s right,” she exclaimed, a little hot. “Perhaps you have never discovered that girls say many things to hide their emotions. Perhaps you don’t realize what feverish, exclamatory, foolish things girls are. They don’t know how to be honest with the men they love, and they wouldn’t if they did. You are little short of an idiot, Monty Brewster, if you believed the things she said rather than the things she looked.”
And Peggy, fiery and determined and defiantly unhappy, threw down her cards and escaped so that she might not prove herself tearfully feminine. She left Brewster still heavily enveloped in melancholy; but she left him puzzled. He began to wonder if Barbara Drew did have something in the back of her mind. Then he
