The woman was gowned in silk, tightly corseted, and wore a hat of rather ostentatious smartness. Minna became convinced that the person was watching her, but before she had a chance to act upon this conviction she was surprised out of all countenance by the stranger coming up to where she sat and speaking to her.
“Here is a coincidence,” exclaimed the newcomer, as she sat down; “surely you are the young girl who sat opposite me on the boat. Strange I should come across you again. I’ve had you in mind ever since.”
On this nearer view Minna observed that the woman’s face bore rather more than a trace of enamel and that the atmosphere about was impregnated with sachet. She was not otherwise conspicuous, but there was a certain hardness about her mouth and a certain droop of fatigue in her eyelids which, combined with an indefinite self-confidence of manner, held Minna’s attention.
“Do you know,” continued the woman, “I believe you are in trouble. I thought so when I saw you on the boat, and I think so now. Are you? Are you in trouble? You’re from the country, ain’t you?”
Minna, glad to find a sympathiser, even in this chance acquaintance, admitted that she was in distress; that she had become separated from her mother, and that she was indeed from the country.
“I’ve been trying to find a situation,” she hazarded in conclusion, “but I don’t seem to succeed. I’ve never been in a city before, except Bonneville.”
“Well, it is a coincidence,” said the other. “I know I wasn’t drawn to you for nothing. I am looking for just such a young girl as you. You see, I live alone a good deal and I’ve been wanting to find a nice, bright, sociable girl who will be a sort of companion to me. Understand? And there’s something about you that I like. I took to you the moment I saw you on the boat. Now shall we talk this over?”
Towards the end of the week, one afternoon, as Presley was returning from his club, he came suddenly face to face with Minna upon a street corner.
“Ah,” he cried, coming toward her joyfully. “Upon my word, I had almost given you up. I’ve been looking everywhere for you. I was afraid you might not be getting along, and I wanted to see if there was anything I could do. How are your mother and Hilda? Where are you stopping? Have you got a good place?”
“I don’t know where mamma is,” answered Minna. “We got separated, and I never have been able to find her again.”
Meanwhile, Presley had been taking in with a quick eye the details of Minna’s silk dress, with its garniture of lace, its edging of velvet, its silver belt-buckle. Her hair was arranged in a new way and on her head was a wide hat with a flare to one side, set off with a gilt buckle and a puff of bright blue plush. He glanced at her sharply.
“Well, but—but how are you getting on?” he demanded.
Minna laughed scornfully.
“I?” she cried. “Oh, I’ve gone to hell. It was either that or starvation.”
Presley regained his room at the club, white and trembling. Worse than the worst he had feared had happened. He had not been soon enough to help. He had failed again. A superstitious fear assailed him that he was, in a manner, marked; that he was foredoomed to fail. Minna had come—had been driven to this; and he, acting too late upon his tardy resolve, had not been able to prevent it. Were the horrors, then, never to end? Was the grisly spectre of consequence to forever dance in his vision? Were the results, the far-reaching results of that battle at the irrigating ditch to cross his path forever? When would the affair be terminated, the incident closed? Where was that spot to which the tentacle of the monster could not reach?
By now, he was sick with the dread of it all. He wanted to get away, to be free from that endless misery, so that he might not see what he could no longer help. Cowardly he now knew himself to be. He thought of himself only with loathing.
Bitterly self-contemptuous that he could bring himself to a participation in such trivialities, he began to dress to keep his engagement to dine with the Cedarquists.
He arrived at the house nearly half an hour late, but before he could take off his overcoat, Mrs. Cedarquist appeared in the doorway of the drawing-room at the end of the hall. She was dressed as if to go out.
“My dear Presley,” she exclaimed, her stout, overdressed body bustling toward him with a great rustle of silk. “I never was so glad. You poor, dear poet, you are thin as a ghost. You need a better dinner than I can give you, and that is just what you are to have.”
“Have I blundered?” Presley hastened to exclaim. “Did not Mr. Cedarquist mention Friday evening?”
“No, no, no,” she cried; “it was he who blundered. You blundering in a social amenity! Preposterous! No; Mr. Cedarquist forgot that we were dining out ourselves tonight, and when he told me he had asked you here for the same evening, I fell upon the man, my dear, I did actually, tooth and nail. But I wouldn’t hear of his wiring you. I just dropped a note to our hostess, asking if I could not bring you, and when I told her who you were, she received the idea with, oh, empressement. So, there it is, all settled. Cedarquist and the girls are gone on ahead, and you are to take the old lady like a dear, dear poet. I believe I hear the carriage. Allons! En voiture!”
Once settled in the cool gloom of the coupé, odorous of leather and upholstery, Mrs. Cedarquist exclaimed:
“And I’ve never told you who you were to dine with; oh, a personage, really. Fancy, you will be in the
