Crimson Roses (18 page)

“Yes,” spoke up Aline, who was riding home in the Radnor car, and who was noted for always saying the wrong thing. “She used to do all our algebra problems for us, didn’t she, Isabel? I remember once—”

But Isabel gave her a warning dig in the ribs and went loudly on.

“She used to be the most demure little thing. I never dreamed she’d develop into a man-hunter. But I’m done with her from now on, and I’ll take care everybody knows just what she is.”

But Isabel Cresson had yet to discover that perhaps she had but just begun with the young woman in question.

Chapter 10

T
he dishes were finished in about half the time it usually took to do them, for the helper proved most efficient. Marion closed and locked the cupboards and handed the key to the janitor with a feeling of elation that was utterly new to her. She felt like a little girl who was going out to play.

They stepped out together into the starlight.

“My car is just around the corner,” said Lyman. “Will you wait here till I bring it or shall we walk?”

“Walk, of course,” said Marion joyously. To think of going home in a car! There had been few automobile rides in Marion’s life, and it seemed almost as great an event to her as a trip to Europe might have been to some people.

“Shall we go the long way or the short way? I’d like to show you a beautiful moonrise if you don’t mind being a few minutes later getting home,” he said.

“Oh, that will be lovely!” gasped Marion. “I have had very few rides lately; I certainly shall enjoy it.”

“I hope you will allow me to take you again soon, then.” He smiled, and they whirled away into what seemed to Marion like enchantment.

They went through the park and out a little way into the country, through a suburb with lofty estates on either hand, and rolling golf greens lying like dark velvet. They saw the moon rise, too, over the crest of a hill, and saw it rippling over a stream down in the valley; and Lyman told her how he had watched it rise in Switzerland once, describing the rosy glow on the snow-capped mountains until she almost held her breath with the delight of it.

And even then they were not very late coming home, for the little clock on Marion’s bureau pointed only to half past twelve, and all that delight and wonder packed into one short hour since they had left the church. What a wonderful thing a high-powered car was. And Mr. Lyman wasn’t a stranger in the city, after all. He had said they would ride soon again.

When she climbed the stairs to her little third-story room, her cheeks were glowing and her eyes were bright.

“Oh, I mustn’t, mustn’t, be so happy as this!” she told herself in the mirror as she caught a glimpse of her won, happy face. “It isn’t right! I am making too much of a small courtesy. He is only being kind and polite. He probably saw how unpleasant those girls were being, and he wanted to make me forget it. I must realize that this doesn’t mean a thing but Christian courtesy. Oh, I won’t presume upon it; it was beautiful, and even if I never do see him again I shall always remember him with gratitude for the beautiful time he gave me tonight, and for the way he sort of championed me before Isabel.

“Is it wicked, I wonder, to be glad that that other girl didn’t get him tonight, and that he stayed and helped me?” she asked herself slowly. “I don’t begrudge her the nice times she has; but she has so many of them, and I had just this one. No, that isn’t true, either. I just will not be ungrateful.”

She went to a pretty little box on her bureau and peeped in at the shriveled rose-leaves lying in rich heaps; and a soft fragrance stole out and sweetened the air. There were a great many beautiful things in her life, for which she was deeply thankful; and she would just take this beautiful evening and enjoy the memory of it, setting out all the disagreeable part and remembering only that which was pleasant.

But sleep did not come quickly to her eyes that night despite the fact that she was very tired. Every experience of the wonderful evening had been gone over, again and again. She thrilled anew with the delight of having someone care to stay and help her and talk to her, and lived again the beautiful ride.

She told herself many times that she just simply must not let this bit of attention turn her head or make her discontented with her simple life. She would read and study the harder so that, if ever another opportunity came of talking with anyone like Mr. Lyman, she would be better able to do it. Then there was the last concert of the season to look forward to, and it promised to be the best of all. Altogether, the world was a happy place, and she was glad to be in it. Yet underneath it all ran the pleasant consciousness of Lyman’s last words to her. He had hoped that they might meet soon again. Did he really mean it? It seemed as if he did. And would they ever meet? When and where would there ever be an opportunity?

But her harmless little triumph was but for the night. The next morning about eleven o’clock Isabel Cresson sailed down upon her, clad in a stunning fur coat, with orchids for a boutonniere, and demanded to see her in a loud, imperative voice.

Marion rose from the seat behind her special counter where she was fashioning some exquisite pink satin petals for a shoulder rose for a well-dressed woman who stood waiting, and greeted Isabel with a courteous smile. She had a premonition that Isabel meant no good in coming thus to her, but while she was not over-cordial, there was a sweet dignity about her that seemed to command respect.

Marion still held the lovely pink folds of ribbon in her fingers, and the needle was partly pulled through a stitch. There was that about her attitude that showed Isabel that she had no time to waste, so Isabel plunged in, regardless of listeners, not even troubling to hush her voice. She spoke haughtily, as to one beneath her, and more than that, as if she had the right to talk, the right of a near friend or relative.

“I just came in to wahn you, Marion, foah yoah own good,” she began. “You can’t get away with the stuff you pout ovah last evening. It won’t go down.”

There was a curious blending of loftiness and modern slang in her speech. But having got underway, she forgot her practiced accent. She raised her voice and became a little more explicit.

“You know you can’t expect people like those over in that church not to gossip, and, of course,
everybody
noticed you. I was so
ashamed
for you, I didn’t know what to do, to make yourself so conspicuous and fairly fling yourself at a young man like that. Of course, he’s a gentleman and couldn’t do a thing but be polite, or you’d have soon found out your mistake. And, of course, you know a young man in his position couldn’t show attention to a girl like you without making talk. It simply isn’t being done. And if he did he wouldn’t mean a thing by it, but I don’t suppose you knew that. I thought I’d better come and tell you.”

Marion had been simply frozen into dumbness by the thing that was happening to her, her smile congealed where it had been when Isabel first started her tirade. It didn’t occur to her that she could do anything to stop it. It didn’t even occur to her to try and answer. What was there to say to such cruelties? She just stood there and grew whiter, and her eyes grew larger and darker. A little slender straight figure like a lance standing there before that avalanche of damaging words!

“You know just what kind of a girl they’ll think you are! You understand, don’t you? You’ve always posed as being so terribly good, but you don’t put that over any longer. We’re wise to you now, and my advice to you is—”

But Isabel got no further, for the aisle man suddenly appeared and stepped up to her politely.

“Is there anything the matter, madam, anything that we can set straight? Something about a purchase?” And Isabel looked up to see quite a crowd collecting nearby. For Gladys Carr, who had chanced to pass that way as Isabel’s tirade began, went scowling after the aisle man and, happening to find him close at hand, pulled him back with her.

“It’s one of these here fierce swells,” she explained, “got a line of talk t’beat the band, and little Warren isn’t saying a thing! Not a darned thing! You better go quick or there won’t be any little Warren left.” So the aisle man came at once. Marion with her quiet ways was somewhat of a relief in his busy days.

It was a delicate matter, interceding between a customer and an employee, but he was a brave man and came courageously to the front. Isabel turned upon him haughtily and replied in a tone that was intended to suppress him and send him off apologetically, “No, merely a personal mattah! You needn’t intafeah!” And then she turned back to Marion with a malicious glance.

“Now, you’re warned, Marion, and I wash my hands if you get into any furthah trouble. But remembah! We won’t stand for anothah such performance!”

Then Isabel turned regardless of the staring onlookers and sailed away with her head in the air and her fur coat swaggering insolently behind her.

But Marion stood still where Isabel had left her, staring blankly, the needle held in her inert hand, the rose falling from the fingers of the other hand, almost as if she had been dead. She was white as death.

It was the voice of the customer who was waiting for her rose that recalled her to her senses and saved her from the whirling feeling that threatened to take her away entirely from the world of sense.

“My dear,” she said, “my dear, don’t mind her! Anyone can see what she is at a glance. Such a tirade! She ought to have been arrested.”

Marion suddenly came back from the borderland and sat down, taking up her half-finished rose and trying to set a stitch with her trembling hands.

“Never mind, Miss Warren. I wouldn’t pay any attention to that,” said the aisle man kindly, looking over his glasses at Marion’s white face. He was an elderly man and had a young daughter of his own growing up. “If she comes back, just you send for me.”

Marion thanked him with her eyes, but she could not utter a word yet. Her throat seemed dry and cold. She felt numb all over.

“Who was that poor girl?” asked Gladys, making a trip past the counter as the aisle man turned away. “Some lady, I’ll say! Say, M’rian, you shouldn’t worry about her! She can’t put anything over on any of us; we’re wise to you, see? The poor fish must be blind not to know you ain’t that kind of a baby! Great cats! I’d like to meet her on a dark night and teach her a few. It’s my opinion she’s jealous, an’ that’s the whole story!”

Marion lifted a grateful glance toward Gladys as she hurried away and then turned to her customer.

“I’m so ashamed,” she said, with a catch in her breath as though she were going to cry. “There wasn’t—any—occasion—whatever!”

“Of course not!” said the customer sympathetically. “That was an outrageous attack. That girl ought to have been arrested. You could have her arrested, you know. You needn’t be ashamed at all. If you decide to have her arrested, I’ll be glad to be a witness for you. You have my address; just let me know. I shouldn’t let her get away with a thing like that.”

Marion sat and worked silently through the long afternoon like one crushed. She felt so humiliated that it seemed to her she never could rise again and look anybody in the face.

And all the time Isabel’s cruel arraignment was going over and over in her mind, and she was reviewing moment by moment the evening before and trying to see what it could have been in her conduct that had merited such an attack. Of course, she knew that she had done nothing wrong. Could it be true that people were talking about her? If so, why? Was it such an unheard-of thing that a young man should be nice to a girl, even if she wasn’t of his social degree? Just for one evening. And of course he couldn’t be expected to know who she was. She looked nice and behaved herself; what more was necessary at a church affair where all were supposed to be brethren? But it seemed that was not enough. She should not have gone to the social. She should not have allowed anyone to speak to her. She ought not to have any good times at all, she told herself bitterly.

She tried to rise above the shock of it and be her natural self. But continually the trouble returned no matter what line of reasoning she used. What had Isabel meant, for instance, by saying “in his position”? Was there something peculiar about Mr. Lyman? Was he perhaps married? Or divorced? There were a great many people divorced in these days of course. Perhaps that was what Isabel meant. Of course, that might have been what made people talk if they all knew it. But if he was divorced, who had he bought the ribbon roses for? She had always supposed they were for his wife. But perhaps they were for some girl. Perhaps he had a great many girlfriends. Well, why not? Most young men had. Would that then make it a sin for another girl to sit and talk with him a little while? He had only been kind and stayed to help her afterward. He had been sorry for the way that the other young people treated her. That was why he took her for that ride. Her cheeks burned red at the thought. What more might not Isabel have said if she had known about the ride? But of course she could not possibly have known that.

Well, she must learn a terrible lesson by this, not to have anything more to do with young men as long as she lived, not even if all the superintendents and ministers of the universe introduced her. Not even if they appeared to be angels come down to earth.

As for this Mr. Lyman, she would think no more about him. She would likely never see him again anyway, in spite of what he had said. That was only a polite way of saying good night. Perhaps she would go to another church for a while so that she would not have to see any of the people who had been talking about her so dreadfully. Or no, that would only be to make them think she was ashamed of herself. No, she would go, quietly, as she always had gone, attend service, and go home alone. Let them think what they pleased for a while. It could not really injure her. They would soon discover that it was not true, and it would be forgotten.

But as for this Mr. Lyman, she could see that he was far above her in every way, of course, cultured and traveled and wealthy, and it was far better for her to keep out of his sight. He was likely only studying her type. Writers did that, she had read. Perhaps he was a writer. Now that she had thought of it, it seemed quite to fit him. Well, she would keep entirely away from this time forth, and just as soon as she felt she could reasonably withdraw from the church without causing more gossip, she would do so. It would come hard to leave her Sunday school class and the minister and his wife, for they were the only two real friends she was sure of in the city.