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Flaming Youth

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<h2>CHAPTER V</h2> Dawn was tinting the high clouds when Mary Delia awoke. She had the gift of coming forth from sleep in full and instant possession of her faculties. Now she felt that something was amiss; something insistent and troublesome going on below her window. She jumped from bed, crossed the room, and looked out upon the shrubbery-encircled driveway. Voices came up to her, restrained and cautious, a man's and a woman's. She recognised the latter. "Hush, you two!" she called, low but imperiously. The man stepped into view. To her surprise it was not Emslie Selfridge but Fred Browning. He was in evening dress, a little wilted, and his eyes looked hot and anxious; but he retained evident command of himself. "That you, Dee?" he whispered loudly, peering up. "Yes. What's the matter? Anything wrong?" "No. Connie can't get in." Dee smothered an exclamation. With dismay she recalled her sister's request that she leave the door unlocked. But she had not dreamed that the party at the Grants' would last as late as this. "I'll be right down," she promised. Turning the dim corner from the stairway she stumbled upon a smoking-stand and overturned it with a din which made her heart stand still. Expectant and fearful she halted, poised and listening. No sound or stir came from above. Cautiously she felt her way forward and unlocked the door. Constance was standing at the corner of the porch. Her hair was dishevelled and luminous,[Pg 50] her eyes softly heavy. There was a stain across the bodice of her evening dress. As the door opened she was releasing her lips from the man's kiss. "Take care of her, Dee," said Browning, and was gone. "And what do you think of that?" challenged Constance as she paused by the threshold. Dee's answer might have seemed inconsecutive. "You are a beautiful thing, Con." "Am I? Perhaps it's just as well that I am." There was a grimness in the sweet voice. "Why that?" "I'd be out of luck if I weren't." "The Grants' party must have been a hurrah." "Not so much. It got too slow for me before two o'clock." "Did it? Where have you been all night?" "Motoring." "You don't look very dusty," observed the shrewd Dee. "Perhaps you think I'm not telling you the truth." "It's no affair of mine," returned Dee easily. "Well, I'm not," continued the elder sister. "Come into the conservatory." She led the way across the living room, dragging her feet a little as she walked. "Now, if you want to know," she continued defiantly, "I'll tell you. I've been in Fred Browning's rooms." "That's nice!" observed Dee. "What's the idea?" "I had to go somewhere. I couldn't come home." "Drunk?" Dee shot out the monosyllable with a sharpness which made the other wince. But she answered promptly: "I was that. And I wasn't the only one. That Bacardi rum is hell." "Who was with you?" "Nobody." [Pg 51] "You and Fred? Alone?" "Yes." "Con!" "I know. But I was so sick." "At the party?" "No. I wasn't any worse than the rest. Everyone was going strong. Emslie had a wonder!" "What will he think?" "He's done his thinking," returned the beauty obstinately. "He pulled a rotten grouch because I danced too much with Freddie at the club, and after we got to the Grants' he wouldn't pay any attention to anything but the punch. Not that I cared. I was enjoying life with Freddie. So we decided to pull out at two o'clock." "Yes; but if you were all right then——" "I was until we got into his car. Then the punch hit me. It was the change into the air, I suppose. I went all to pieces, just as we were passing his apartment. So he took me in there. It wasn't his fault. I was terribly sick and then awfully sleepy, and when I woke up——" "Woke up?" "Yes. Fred was bathing my face and telling me that I had to pull myself together and go home.... What are you looking at me that way for, Dee?" she concluded plaintively. "Con, did anything happen?" "Anything happen?" repeated the other in a dreamy voice. "I—I—don't know." "You don't know! You must know." "Yes; I would, wouldn't I? Though I was completely sunk. Anything might have happened," said she, slowly nodding her lovely hair-beclouded head. "Con! Think!" urged Dee with impatient anxiety. [Pg 52] "I wouldn't care," declared the beauty recklessly. "I'm crazy about Freddie.... But it didn't; no, I'm sure of that now. Freddie's an awfully decent sort, Dee." "He hasn't too pious a reputation. And when did you take on this sudden hunch for him? I thought it was Emslie." "So did I. Until—Dee, did you ever have a man that you've always known suddenly look different to you?" "No. Not enough different, anyway, to make any difference." "It's hard to explain. Something in the way he affects you changes and all the world changes with it. That's how it was with Fred, and, I suppose the same way about me with him. Though he claims he's been mad about me for months." "That's a blessing, considering," remarked Dee grimly. "Suppose you were seen going into his place?" "We weren't." "So far as you know." "If we should have been, it's a sweet little scandal for the cats, isn't it!" "In that case it's up to Freddie. It's up to Freddie anyway." "Freddie's all right," declared Connie with conviction. "If he hadn't been—Dee, when I came to, I told him I didn't want to go home." "You wanted to stay?" said the sister slowly. Constance nodded. "I wasn't quite sobered up. But anyway I did want to stay. You can't understand that, can you?" "No; I can't." "Because you're a cold-blooded little fish. I'm still feeling that dam' Bacardi or I wouldn't be talking to you this way." [Pg 53] "Was Fred feeling it, too?" "If he was, he had a grip on himself all right. He's a lot squarer man than people give him credit for, Dee." "Lucky for you he is." "Oh, I don't know. What's the difference!" retorted Connie perversely. "I guess those sort of things happen a lot more often than any of us know about." "What sort of things?" interpolated a voice new to the parley. The two sisters whirled about. Just outside the door stood Patricia in her tousled nightgown, hot-eyed with curiosity. "What sort of things?" she repeated. "How long have you been there?" demanded Mary Delia. "Long enough to hear a lot," answered the unperturbed Patricia. "Since before you asked Con did anything happen, and she said first she didn't know and afterward that it didn't. What did you mean? What didn't happen?" With a sudden pounce the lithe Dee was upon her and held her, half-choked against the wall. "If you breathe a word of this, Scrubs, I'll half kill you." "Leh—heh-heh—me alone!" whimpered Pat. "I'm not going to tell anybody." "See that you don't, then." "You told on me about Warren Graves." "That was different." "How, different?" "You're only a child. You've no business playing silly tricks like that." "Wasn't it a silly trick of Con to——" "Go back to bed," ordered Dee with a powerful shake which seemed to the unfortunate victim to loosen her eyes in their sockets. [Pg 54] She crept away but paused at the door to say wistfully and sullenly: "Just the same, I think you might tell me what didn't happen." Late the next afternoon Fred Browning came to the house, having called up Constance at noon. Dee came down to him. "Is everything all right, Dee?" he asked anxiously. The girl nodded. "Yes. The family didn't wake up. I'll send Con down right away." But before Constance arrived, little Pat entered the side room where he was nervously waiting. She looked at him solemnly, entreatingly, hesitatingly, then burst out: "Mr. Browning, will you tell me something?" Her earnestness amused him. "Why, of course," he said, quite unsuspecting. "I always like to help the young to knowledge. But don't make it too hard." "What was it that might have happened to Con last night, that the girls wouldn't tell me about?" He stared at her, completely aghast. "You young devil!" he breathed. Constance's quick footsteps sounded on the stairs, and the inquirer was fain to flee, unsated of her curiosity. But she peered back, and her breath came quicker as she saw her pretty sister walk straight, eager, and unashamed into the man's waiting arms. Pat deemed it the part of prudence to keep herself aloof the rest of the day. Later Fred Browning had a cocktail with Mr. Fentriss and a brief talk on the subject of Constance. And so they were married. <hr /> [Pg 55] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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