Читать книгу The Remittance Man - Ambrose Pratt - Страница 6

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Lena and Joyce had no opportunity to exchange impressions concerning Marion until they had returned home and retired for the night. But each was so anxious to impart her views to the other that they met in the corridor that joined their rooms, a moment after they had bidden Mr. Best good-night.

"I was going to you," whispered Lena.

"So was I to you!" exclaimed Joyce. "I'm just dying for a talk. Come to my room."

"Do you think her pretty?" demanded Lena, sinking upon a lounge and beginning to unbind her hair.

Joyce squatted Turk-wise on a hearth-rug at the other's feet. "I think most men would call her pretty," she replied reflectively.

"But yourself?"

Joyce shook her head. "She can't hold a candle to you, Lena."

"Really?"

"Truly."

Lena smiled, then laughed. "She dresses like a dream," she said enviously. "That frock she wore when she arrived fitted her to perfection."

"Yes, she knows how to wear a dress," admitted Joyce; "that's a fact."

"Her figure is so good, too, and she carries herself so well," sighed Lena.

"No better than you, my dear."

"Really?"

"Truly."

Lena rose and stepped before the mirror. "If only I could afford to buy frocks like her's——" she murmured, gazing sadly at her image.

"You'd cast her utterly in the shade," concluded Joyce.

"I'm glad you think that, darling," said Lena more brightly; "that's a thing I love in you, Joyce—you are so honest—you always give your sincere opinion about things."

Joyce glanced keenly at her friend, suspecting her of sarcasm, but Lena was smiling conceitedly at her reflection in the glass.

She felt annoyed, and a little disgusted. "The worst of it is that men's ideas of beauty differ generally from women's," she observed.

Lena started and half turned. "You've said that before," she cried.

"Yes—and it's true."

Lena caught her breath. "Do you believe that the men here will prefer her to me," she demanded.

"New brooms sweep clean," declared Joyce.

"If I thought they would——" said Lena clutching her pretty hands.

"What would you do?"

"I'd fix her," cried Lena viciously.

"How?"

"Never mind. I'd find a way, though."

Joyce began to enjoy herself. She was sincerely attached to Lena, but she was a plain girl, and she had always been neglected when Lena was by. She experienced now the cruel joy of knowing that it was unexpectedly placed in her power to make her pretty friend suffer certain pangs with which she was long and intimately acquainted, and for which she had never received any human sympathy. The temptation to experiment with this power was irresistible.

"Did you see Horace Keeling on the wharf this morning?" she asked suddenly.

"Yes," replied Lena; "but why——"

"Oh, nothing."

"Nonsense—tell me."

"Nothing, dear—I just asked——"

Lena turned pale. "Joyce, you saw something!" she cried. "I'll never forgive you if you don't tell me what it was at once."

"I didn't see anything," protested Joyce. "I only heard him speaking to Jack Mappin about her—that's all."

"What did he say?"

"Jack—said he thought she was not bad looking."

"Yes—yes."

"Horace called him an idiot, and said that anyone with half an eye could see she was just beautiful."

Lena's pale eyes blazed. "The brute!" she cried—"the brute!"

"That's why I spoke about men's opinions differing from women's," murmured Joyce.

"I hate him," said Lena bitterly.

"No man is worth a thought," quoted Joyce, concealing her delight under a fine show of sympathy. "Don't you bother your head about him, darling. There are as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it. Let her have him—he is not much, anyway."

"Rats!" snapped Lena. "He is the nicest man here, and he has the best position, and you know it."

"You don't mean to say that you care for him?" cried Joyce, with much innocent surprise.

"I loathe him," flashed Lena; "but I won't let her get him."

"But how will you prevent her, darling; he is bound to run after her, if only to try to hurt you."

"We'll see about that."

"Oh, yes," murmured Joyce, "and we shan't have to wait long either, he is bound to show his hand at the ball."

"Ah! the ball! Joyce, would you believe it, Marion refused to let me help her write the invitations, and she professes to love me!"

"If it was my ball, you should write them all!" cried Joyce; "when I love a person it is all in all with me."

"You are the only friend I have," said Lena miserably. "Say you will never go back on me, Joyce."

"Never, darling; never! never!"

"And you'll help me—you'll do all I tell you?"

"To the death," cried Joyce with quite tragic fervor.

Lena began to pace the floor, her face set, her hands tightly clenched; Joyce watched her out of the corners of her eyes. For several moments silence reigned, then Lena stopped abruptly and faced her friend.

"I'll put her up at the club to-morrow morning!" she declared.

"Why so soon, darling?"

"To get her into my power."

"Into your power? Whatever can you mean, dearie?"

"I'd die—I couldn't live—If he went after her!" said Lena, her lip trembling.

"You must not let him," said Joyce; "but I don't quite see how you can help it, if he wants to."

"I can," cried Lena; "if the worst comes to the worst, there is always our club's Social Purity Brigade movement to fall back upon."

"How do you mean?" asked Joyce, with a puzzled frown.

"Why—we can put him on the black list and then she will be obliged to cut him. Isn't our club pledged to cut every man whose name is on the black list?"

Joyce gasped in her astonishment. "That's w-why you w-want her to join the club!" she stammered.

Lena nodded, biting her lip.

"But you'd have to cut him, too," cried Joyce.

"Better that than let her get him," grated Lena.

Joyce scrambled to her feet. "By gum! Lena, I do admire you!" she said warmly, "you are a Spartan—that is what you are! Let me kiss you!"

But Lena's fortitude had been strained beyond endurance. "I may—be—a Sp-Spartan," she stammered, as she felt her friend's arms about her. "B—But my heart is just breaking, Joyce!" whereupon, with a big sob, she burst into a storm of weeping.