Chapter 14

NEPTUNE'S SECOND DAUGHTER

"Chicago, Illinois.

"Dearest Carol and David--

"Carol, dear, an awful thing has happened. Do you remember the millionaire's son who discovered me up the cherry tree years ago when I was an infant? He comes to see me now and then. He is very nice and attentive, and all of my friends have selected the color schemes for their boudoirs in my forthcoming palatial home. One night he telephoned and said his mother was in town with him, and they should like to come right up if I did not mind. I did not know he was in town, I hardly knew he had a mother, and I was in the act of shampooing my hair. Phyllis was making candy, and Gladys was reading aloud to us both. Imagine the mother of a millionaire's son coming right up, and I in a shampoo.

"'Oh,' I wailed, 'I haven't anything to wear, and I am not used to millionaires' sons' mothers, and I won't know what to say to her.'

"'Leave it to us, Connie!' cried my friends valiantly.

"Gladys whirled the magazine under the bed, and Phyllis turned out the electricity under the chafing-dish and put the candy in the window to finish at a later date.

"Did I tell you about our housekeeping venture? Gladys is a private secretary to something down-town and gets an enormous salary, thirty a week. Phyllis is an artist and has a studio somewhere, and we are great friends. So we took a cunning little apartment for three months, and we all live together and cook our meals in the baby kitchenette when we feel domestic, and dine out like princesses when we feel lordly. We have the kitchenette, and a bathroom with two kinds of showers, and a bedroom apiece, though mine is really a closet, and two sitting-rooms, so two of us can have beaus the same night. If we feel the need of an extra sitting-room--that is, three beaus a night--we draw cuts to see who has to resort to the park, or a movie, or the ice-cream parlor, or the kitchenette. Our time is up next week and we shall return modestly to our boarding-houses. It is great fun, but it is expensive, and we are so busy.

"We have lovely times. The girls are--not like me. They are really society buds, and wear startling evening gowns and go places in taxis, and are quite the height of fashion. It is a wonder they put up with me at all. Still every establishment must have at least one Cinderella. But let me admit honestly and Methodistically that I do less Cinderelling than either of them. Gladys darns my stockings, and Phyllis makes my bed fully half the time.

"Anyhow, when Andrew Hedges, millionaire's son, telephoned that his mother was coming up, they fell upon me, and one rubbed and one fanned, and they both talked at once, and in the end I agreed to leave myself in their hands. They knew all about millionaires' sons' mothers, it seemed, and would fix me up just exactly O. K. right. Gladys and I are the same size, and she has an exquisite semi-evening gown of Nile green and honest-to-goodness lace which I have long admired humbly from my corner among the ashes. Just the thing. I should wear it, and make the millionaire's son's mother look like twenty cents.

"Wickedly and wilfully I agreed. So when the hair was dry enough to manage, they marched me into Gladys' room--the only one of the three capable of accommodating three of us--and turned the mirrors to the wall. I protested at that. I wanted to see my progress under their skilful fingers.

"'No,' said Phyllis sagely. 'It looks horrible while it is going on. You must wait until you are finished, and then burst upon your own enraptured vision. You will enchant yourself.'

"Gladys seconded her and I assented weakly. I know I am not naturally weak, Carol, but the thought of a millionaire's son's mother affected me very strangely. It took all the starch out of my knees, and the spine out of my backbone.

"By this time I was established in Gladys' green slippers with rhinestone buckles, and Gladys was putting all of her own and Phyllis' rings on my fingers, and Phyllis was using a crimping iron on my curls. I was too curly already, but Phyllis said natural curliness was not the thing any more. Then Gladys began dabbing funny sticky stuff all over my fingers, and scratching my eyebrows, and powdering about twenty layers on my face and throat. After that, she rubbed my finger nails until I could almost see what they were doing to me. I never thought I had much hair, but when Phyllis got through with me I could hardly carry it. The ladies in Hawaii who carry bushel baskets on their heads will tell you how I felt. And whenever I moved it wabbled. But they both clapped their hands and said I looked like a dream, and of course I would have acquired another bushel had they advised it.

"I trusted them because they look so wonderful when they are finished,--just right,--never too much so.

"Our bell rang then, and Phyllis answered and said, 'Tell them Miss Starr will be in in a moment.'

"There is a general apartment maid, and when we wish to be very perfectly fine, we borrow her,--for a quarter.

"When I knew they had arrived, I leaped up, panic-stricken, and dived head first into that pile of Nile green silk and real lace. They rescued me tenderly, and pushed me in, and hooked me here, and buttoned me there, both panting and gasping, I madly hurrying them on, because I can't get over that silly old parsonage notion that it isn't good form to keep folks waiting.

"'There you are,' cried Gladys.

"'Fly,' shouted Phyllis.

"Out I dashed, recollected myself in the bathroom, and--yes, I did that foolish thing, Carol. Your vanity would have saved you such a blunder. But I tore myself from their blood-stained hands, and went in to meet a millionaire's son's mother without looking myself over in the mirror.

"When I parted the curtains, Andy leaped to his feet with his usual quick eagerness, but he stopped abruptly and his lips as well as his eyes widened.

"'How do you do?' I said, moistening my lips which already felt too wet, only I didn't know what was the matter with them. I held out my hand, unwontedly white, and he took it flabbily, instead of briskly and warmly as he usually did.

"'Mother,' he said, 'I want you to meet Miss Starr.'

"She wasn't at all the kind of millionaire's son's mother we have read about. She had no lorgnette, and she did not look me over superciliously. But she had turned my way as though confident of being pleased, and her soft eyes clouded a little, though she smiled sweetly. Her hair was silver white and curled over her forehead and around her ears. She had dimples, and she stuck her chin up like a girl when she laughed. She wore the softest, sweetest kind of a wistaria colored silk. I was charmed with her. It could not have been mutual.

"She held out her hand, smiling so gently, still with the cloud in her eyes, and we all sat down. She did not look me over, though she must have yearned to do so. But Andy looked me over thoroughly, questioningly, from the rhinestone pin at the top of the swaying hair, to the tips of my Nile green shoes. I tried to talk, but my hair wabbled so, and little invisible hair pins kept visibleing themselves and sliding into my lap and down my neck, and my lips felt so moist and sticky, and my skin didn't fit like skin, and--still I was determined to live up to my part, and I talked on and on, and--then, quite suddenly, I happened to glance into a mirror beside me. There was some one else in the room. Some one in a marvelous dress, with a white-washed throat, with lips too red, and cheeks too pink, and brows too black, some one with an unbelievable quantity of curls on top of her, and--I turned around to see whom it might be. Nobody there. I looked back to the mirror. I was not dreaming,--of course there was some one in the room. No, the room was empty save we three. I turned suspiciously to Mrs. Hedges. She was still in her place, a smiling study in wistaria and silver gray. I looked at Andy, immaculate in black and white. Then--sickening realization.

"I stood up abruptly. The atrocity in the mirror rose also.

"'That isn't I,' I cried imploringly.

"Mrs. Hedges looked startled, but Andy came to my side at once.

"'No, it certainly isn't,' he said heartily. 'What on earth have you been doing to yourself, Connie?'

"I went close to the mirror, inspecting myself, grimly, piteously. I do not understand it to this day. The girls do the same things to themselves and they look wonderful,--never like that.

"I rubbed my lips with my fingers, and understood the moisture. I examined my brows, and knew what the scratching meant. I shook the pile of hair, and a shower of invisible hair pins rewarded me. I brushed my fingers across my throat, and a cloud of powder wafted outward.

"What does it say in the Bible about the way of the unrighteous? Well, I know just as much about the subject as the Bible does, I think. For a time I was speechless. I did not wish to blame my friends. But I could not bear to think that any one should carry away such a vision of one of father's daughters.

"'Take a good look at me please,' I said, laughing, at last, 'for you will never see me again. I am Neptune's second daughter. I stepped full-grown into the world to-night from the hands of my faithless friends. Another step into my own room, and the lovely lady is gone forever.'

"Andy understands me, and he laughed. But his mother still smiled the clouded smile.

"I hurled myself into the depths of self-abasement. I spared no harsh details. I told of the shampoo, and the candy on the window-ledge, the magazine under the bed. Religiously I itemized every article on my person, giving every one her proper due. Then I excused myself and went up-stairs. I sneaked into my own room, removed the dream of Nile green and lace and jumped up and down on it a few times, in stocking feet, so the girls would not hear,--and relieved my feelings somewhat. I think I had to resort to gold dust to resurrect my own complexion,--not the best in the world perhaps, but mine, and I am for it. I combed my hair. I donned my simple blue dress,--cost four-fifty and Aunt Grace made it.' I wore my white kid slippers and stockings. My re-debut--ever hear the word?--was worth the exertion. Andy's face shone as he came to meet me. His mother did not know me.

"'I am Miss Starr,' I said. 'The one and only.'

"'Why, you sweet little thing,' she said, smiling, without the cloud.

"We went for a long drive, and had supper down-town at eleven o'clock, and she kept me with her at the hotel all night. It was Saturday. I slept with her and used all of her night things and toilet articles. I told her about the magnificent stories I am going to write sometime, and she told me what a darling Andy was when he was a baby, and between you and me, I doubt if they have a million dollars to their name. Honestly, Carol, they are just as nice as we are.

"They stayed in Chicago three days, and she admitted she came on purpose to get acquainted with me. She made me promise to spend a week with them in Cleveland when I can get away, and she gave me the dearest little pearl ring to remember her by. But I wonder--I wonder-- Anyhow I can't tell him until he asks me, can I? And he has never said a word. You know yourself, Carol, you can't blurt things out at a man until he gives you a chance. So my conscience is quite free. And she certainly is adorable. Think of a mother-in-law like that, pink and gray, with dimples. Yes, she is my ideal of a mother-in-law. I haven't met 'father' yet, but he doesn't need to be very nice. A man can hide a hundred faults in one fold of a pocketbook the size of his.

"Lots of love to you both,--and you write to Larkie oftener than you do to me, which isn't fair, for she has a husband and a baby and is within reaching distance of father, and I am an orphan, and a widow, and a stranger in a strange land.

"But I love you anyhow.

"Connie."