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Flaming Youth

<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2> Consciousness of virtue warmed Pat's heart as she jumped from the train at Dorrisdale and sniffed the shrewd October air with nostrils that quivered like a kitten's. She had been working hard at school, ever so much harder than there was any real need for, on her music and domestic science, and now she was to enjoy some deserved recreation. For this was the week of Dee's wedding and she had five days of unmitigated gaiety in prospect. She peopled her plans with the figures of those who were to be participants of and ministers to her pleasurings, nearly all of them, it is significant to note, of the masculine gender. There were the local youth of her own "crowd," with half a dozen of whom she had "had a flutter" more or less ardent, in the last year; the out-of-town contingent whom she had long known from the viewpoint of childhood and upon whom she aspired confidently to try her burgeoning charms; and two or three unknowns who were to be of the wedding party. Cary Scott had a place in the mosaic, too; but not an overshadowing one. The easy effacements of time, so potent upon a youthful mind, had dimmed, though they had not erased, his image. She was expectant of livelier excitements than association with him afforded. Nevertheless there was an abiding feeling of assurance in having him for a secure background: she looked forward happily to being approved by him for having worked so hard, much as a playful puppy looks for a tidbit as reward of a trick cleverly performed. Furthermore she had a surprise in store for him. [Pg 160] "What's doing to-night?" was her first question of Dee, after their greetings. "Dinner-dance at the Vaughns'." "Everybody going to be there?" "All that are on hand. Some of the party aren't here yet." "Who's back of my crowd?" "Selden Thorpe, Billy Grant, Monty Standish; he was asking to-day about you." "That stiff!" commented Pat, doing a pirouette. "No more pep than a jumping-jack." "Neither would you have if you'd been brought up in a bandbox. But he's begun to lift the lid and look around. And he's a winner to look at." "Maybe I'll have a shot at him. Dee, I'm out for trouble this trip. I've been being good so long it hurts." "You look it; the trouble-hunting, I mean," commented the elder, appraising her maid-of-honour. "They ought to put a danger signal over you, Pat. Where do you get the stuff that you work on the men? Your features are nothing to hire out to an artist, you know. And yet——" Pat laughed delightedly. "Aren't they? Well, you and Con have got enough cold and haughty beauty for the family. Being a bride is becoming to you, Dee. You look stunning." Indeed, Dee's clean-cut, attractive athleticism seemed to have taken on a new quality. Her eyes had grown more brilliant; there was a higher glow of colour in the clear skin; but a more analytical observer than Pat might have discerned in the little, straightening lines at the corners of the firm, sweet mouth, a conscious effort at nervous control. "Oh, I'm all right," said she, carelessly. "When's Cissie coming?" [Pg 161] Cissie Parmenter was the Philadelphia schoolmate whom Pat had adopted as "b.f." "To-morrow night. You're a peach to let me have her. What'll we do with her Wednesday, Dee? Only the actual wedding party are asked to the Dangerfields', aren't they?" "That's all. I'll get Cary Scott to run her in town for luncheon." "Isn't Mr. Scott one of the ushers?" "No. He and Jimmy aren't very strong for each other. I'm using him as my general utility man for the show. Dad's no good for that, and Bobs is too busy." "Cissie'll be all fired up about Mr. Scott. I've told her about him." "Did you tell her he was married?" "Of course. You don't think that would cramp Cissie's style, do you? She'll show him some thrill if he gives her half a chance. Not that he's too brisk a pacer, himself. How's his little flutter with Con going?" "All off," answered Dee, laconically. "Does Con miss it much?" "No. She's having a mild whirl with Emslie Selfridge. He's safer." "Safer than Mr. Scott? Couldn't be. I think Scottie invented Safety First." "Do you?" returned Dee drily. "Well, you've still got something to learn about men, Infant." "I've got something to teach 'em, too," laughed Pat impishly. "Will he be there to-night?" "Who? Cary? No; he's in Washington. Gets back to-morrow noon." This suited Pat well enough for her projected surprise. It went with her temperament that she should have a taste for dramatic effect. Assuming that Mr. Scott would report himself at the house shortly after his [Pg 162]arrival, she planned to keep the early afternoon free. Watchful at her window, on pretence of taking a nap, she saw his car come up the drive and hurried down to the music room where she seated herself at the piano and began to strum casually, taking up the accompaniment of a song as he entered the front door. It was sketchy and sloppy, that accompaniment, the performance of a jerry-trained hand, but it served as background to the fresh, deep, unforgotten voice, which met his ears and checked his footsteps. <div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> <div>"If love were what the rose is</div> <div>And you were like the leaf."</div> </div></div> </div> She completed the stanza, conscious, through her woman's sense, of every slow step that brought him nearer to her. All the falsity of method, the cheap trickery of intonation which had been coached into her for the song, could not wholly devitalise the velvety passion of the voice. As the final word died away she whirled about. "Mr. Scott! I didn't know you were there." "Didn't you?" He smiled down into her eyes with that quietly ironic look of his which seemed to mock at himself as much as at that to which it was directed, taking her outstretched hand. "I'm glad to see you, Pat. But—didn't you?" "You know I did," she confessed. "I was singing at you. Did you like it?" "Yes." Unsated of her lust for praise, she persisted: "Don't you think my lessons have done me good?" "Have you been taking lessons?" "Certainly I have. You told me you wanted me to. I've been working terribly hard." [Pg 163] "How hard?" "A whole hour, some days. Or pretty nearly." "That is toil! Under whom?" "One of the teachers at school. She's very good." "A professional?" "She used to sing in a choir. She says," Pat dropped her voice impressively, "there are lots of voices on the stage not as good as mine." "Doubtless." "I wish I knew what you mean when you say that, that funny way," she said pathetically. "I think you're awfully queer to-day, anyway." Her manner changed from petulance to pleading. "Do you think I've got a terrible lot to learn before I could try?" "Try? What?" "Going on the stage." "I think you've got everything to unlearn," he said calmly. Silently she gazed at him. The tender upper curve of her lip quivered. She turned back to the piano, jangled a discord which was intended to be a sad and melting harmony, and told her little, feminine lie in a muffled voice: "And I did it all on your account, too." "Were you going on the stage on my account?" Around she whisked again, jumped from the seat and went to him, her face alight. "That's what I adore about you. You never let me put over any bunk. What makes you so awfully clever about girls, Mr. Scott?" "Not clever at all," he disclaimed. "I'm simply being honest with you. And," he supplemented, "hoping that you're one of those rare human beings with whom one can be honest successfully." "Oh, I am," she averred fervently. "But you simply[Pg 164] smeared my feelings. I thought you were going to be perfectly thrilled and I get no come-back at all! Don't you like my voice even a little bit any more, Mr. Scott? You did, before." "There's a quality in it that—that—— But what's the use! You won't do any honest work with it." "You don't think I'm any good at all, do you?" she said peevishly. "We were talking about your music, weren't we?" "Ah, but I've done a lot besides music since I saw you. And I've been fearfully good and proper. Aren't you proud?" "Of you? Very," he smiled. "Of your influence." She took a fold of his sleeve between finger and thumb and idly pleated at it, keeping her intent gaze fixed there. "Nobody's ever had half so much over me. I've always done exactly what I liked and never done anything I didn't like." "It's a delightful world, isn't it, Pat? But sometimes those things have to be paid for." At this she raised her eyes, thoughtful and honest eyes, now a little shadowed. "I've always known that. And I'll always be ready to pay. Whatever else I may be, I'm not yellow, Mr. Scott. I'll take what I can get, and if there's a—a come-back, I'll take that, too." "Yes. You've got courage. Ça se voit. That sees itself." He had dropped unconsciously into the emphatic French idiom. "Does it? How can you tell? You don't know me so well." "No; I don't." "Yes, you do," she contradicted him and herself. "I think you know me better than anyone ever has." Again she let her glance fall. [Pg 165] "I know that you will face whatever comes, unafraid. That is in your face. No; it's in the way you bear yourself. In any event, there it is." "But you did hurt my feelings. Terribly! I thought you'd like my music—and maybe pat me on the head—and say 'Nice little girl'—and give me a kiss and a stick of candy." She slipped her fingers down to his wrist, let them creep to the palm of his hand where they clung. "Say you're glad to see me again, Mr. Scott," she murmured. "Very glad." "But"—she tilted her face toward his, turned it away, whispered—"I don't think you act so—very." His free hand clamped strongly, friendlily down upon hers for a moment, then released it with a tap. "Are you trying to flirt with your grandfather, Pat?" he mocked. Not for the first time in their intercourse Pat said savagely, "I hate you!" But this time she said it to herself, with the wrath of disappointment and shamed uncertainty. She turned to take her music from the piano. It fluttered from her grasp to the floor whence he retrieved it. Pat's heart gave a bound of exultation. She had seen his hand shake as it held the sheet out to her. "Wouldn't Grandpa like a dance with Granddaughter this evening?" she challenged gaily. "As many as Granddaughter can spare from her little playmates." "Come early then and avoid the rush," she advised. "I'll keep what I can out of the wreckage. Now I must send Dee down to you. She's got a million things for you to do." The million things proved exacting enough to keep Scott in town so long that the dance was well under way[Pg 166] when he reached it. Pat passed him on the floor, floating beatifically in the arms of this or that partner, never for more than a few turns with anyone, for the rush was on for her favours. After dancing contentedly enough with such partners as he could pick up, for several numbers, Scott looked about to see whether there was any hope of his cutting in on Pat, but failed to find her on the floor; so, as the rooms were rather close, he wandered outside to smoke a cigarette. The soft carpet of the lawn tempted his tired feet. He strolled around the house, intending to re-enter by the far end of the vine-shrouded piazza, when, turning the corner, he came abruptly upon a couple deep in shadow which did not prevent his making out that they were close-clasped. Noiselessly though he stepped back he saw the girl's face strain back in attentiveness. Pat's startled eyes peered after him in the dark, unrecognising. Cary Scott swore. Then he laughed. The laughter was more bitter than the curse. <hr /> [Pg 167] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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