START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRICELESS PEARL*** E-text prepared by Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org) Note: Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/pricelesspearl00mill THE PRICELESS PEARL by ALICE DUER MILLER Author of _"Manslaughter," "Come Out of the Kitchen," "Are Parents People?" etc._ [Illustration: Decoration] New York Dodd, Mead & Company 1924 Copyright 1923, 1924 By Alice Duer Miller Printed in U. S. A. THE PRICELESS PEARL CHAPTER I "The girl is simply too good-looking," said Bunner, the office manager, in a high, complaining voice. "She is industrious, intelligent, punctual and well-mannered, but simply too good-looking--a disturbing element in the office on account of her appearance. I made a grave mistake in engaging her." The president, who had been a professor of botany at a great university before he resigned in order to become head of The Universal Encyclopedia of Necessary Knowledge Publishing Corporation, was a trifle deaf, but had not as yet admitted the fact to himself; and he inquired with the patient, slightly contemptuous surprise of the deaf, "But I do not understand why she is crying." "It is not she who is crying," answered the office manager regretfully; "it is Mr. Rixon, our third vice president. He is crying because he has most unfortunately become interested in the young woman--fallen in love with her--so my stenographer tells me." The president peered through his bifocal lenses. He did not wish to be thought one of those unsophisticated scientists who understand only the plain unpsychological process of plants. He inquired whether the girl had encouraged the third vice president, whether, in a word, she had given him to understand that she took a deeper interest in him than was actually the fact, "the disappointment of the discovery being the direct cause of the emotional outbreak which you have just described." Bunner hesitated. He would have liked to consider that Miss Leavitt was to blame, for otherwise the responsibility was entirely his own. In his heart he believed she was, for he was one of those men who despise women and yet consider them omnipotent. "I can't say I've ever seen her do more than say good morning to him," he answered rather crossly. "But I believe there is a way of avoiding a man--with her appearance. You have probably never noticed her, sir, but----" "Oh, I've noticed her," said the president, nodding his old head. "I've noticed a certain youth and exuberant vitality, and--yes, I may say beauty--decided beauty." Bunner sighed. "A girl like that ought to get married," he said. "They ought not to be working in offices, making trouble. It's hard on young men of susceptible natures like Mr. Rixon. You can hardly blame him." No, they agreed they did not blame him at all; and so they decided to let the young woman have her salary to the first of the month and let her go immediately. "That will be best, Bunner," said the president, and dismissed the matter from his mind. But Bunner, who knew that there was a possibility that even a beautiful young woman might not enjoy losing her job, could not dismiss the matter from his mind until the interview with her was over. He decided, therefore, to hold it at once, and withdrew from the president's room, where, as a directors' meeting was about to take place, the members of the board were already beginning to gather. Bunner was a pale fat man of forty, who was as cold to the excessive emotion of the third vice president as he was to the inconvenient beauty which had caused it. He paused beside Miss Leavitt's desk in the outer office and requested a moment of her time. She had finished going over the article on Corals and was about to begin that on Coronach--a Scotch dirge or lamentation for the dead. She had just been wondering whether any created being would, ever want to know anything about coronach, when Mr. Bunner spoke to her. If she had followed her first impulse she would have looked up and beamed at him, for she was of the most friendly and warmhearted nature; but she remembered that beaming was not safe where men were concerned--even when they were fat and forty--so she answered coldly, "Yes, Mr. Bunner," and rose and followed him to his own little office. Miss Pearl Leavitt, A. B., Rutland College, was not one of those beauties who must be pointed out to you before you appreciate their quality. On the contrary, the eye roving in her neighborhood was attracted to her as to a luminary. There was nothing finicky or subtle or fine-drawn about her. Her features were rather large and simple, like a Greek statue's, though entirely without a statue's immobility. Her coloring was vivid--a warm brunette complexion, a bright golden head and a pair of large gray eyes that trembled with their own light as they fixed themselves upon you, much as the reflection of the evening star trembles in a quiet pool. But what had always made her charm, more than her beauty, was her obvious human desire to be a member of the gang--to enjoy what the crowd enjoyed and do what was being done. It was agony to her to assume the icy, impassive demeanor which, since she had been working in offices, she had found necessary. But she did it. She was hard up. When Mr. Bunner had sent away his stenographer and shut the door he sat down and pressed his small fat hands together. "Miss Leavitt," he said, "I am sorry to be obliged to tell you that during the summer months when so many of our heads of departments are away on their vacations, we shall be obliged to reduce our office staff; and so, though your work has been most satisfactory--we have no complaint to make of your work--still I am sorry to be obliged to tell you that during the summer months, when so many of our heads of departments----" He did not know what was the matter; the sentence appeared to be a circular sentence without exits. Miss Leavitt folded her arms with a rapid whirling motion. Of course, since the first three words of his sentence she had known that she had lost her job. "Just why is it that I am being sent away?" she said. Sulky children, before they actually burst into tears, have a way of almost visibly swelling like a storm cloud. It would be wrong to suggest that anything as lovely as Pearl Leavitt could swell, and yet there was something of this effect as she stared down at the office manager. He did not like her tone, nor yet her look. He said with a sort of acid smile, "I was about to explain the reason when you interrupted me. Although your work has been perfectly satisfactory, we feel that during the summer months----" He wrenched himself away from that sentence entirely. "It is the wish of the president," he said, "that you be given your salary to the first of the month--which I hereby hand you--and be told that it will not be necessary for you to come here after today. In parting with you, Miss Leavitt, I wish to assure you that the quality of your work for this organization has been in every respect----" "I want to speak to the president," said Miss Leavitt. She did not raise her voice, but no one could have mistaken that her tone was threatening. She vibrated her head slightly from side to side, and spit out her _t's_ in a way actually alarming to Bunner, who was a man susceptible to fear. "Our decision is quite final--quite final, I'm sorry to say," he said, fussing with his papers as a hint that she had better go and leave him in peace. "That's why I want to speak to him." "Quite impossible," answered Bunner. "The board is meeting at present in his room----" "What!" cried Pearl. "They're all there together, are they?" And before the office manager took in her intention she was out of his office, across the main office and in the board room. Like so many people destined to succeed in New York, Pearl came originally from Ohio. She was an orphan, and after her graduation from an Eastern college she had gone back to her native state, meaning to make her home with her two aunts. It had not been a successful summer. Not only was it hot, and there was no swimming where her aunts lived, and Pearl loved to swim, but two of her cousins fell in love with her--one from each family--and it became a question either of their leaving home or of her going. So Pearl very gladly came East again, and under the guidance of her great friend Augusta Exeter began to look for a job. She had come East in September, and it was now July--hardly ten months--and yet in that time she had had and lost four good jobs through no fault of her own but wholly on account of her extraordinary beauty. She was not insulted; no one threatened her virtue or offered to run away with her. It was simply that, like Helen of Troy, "Where'er she came she brought calamity." Her first place had been with a publishing firm, Dixon & Gregory. When Pearl came to them the business was managed by the two sons of the original firm; the elder Dixon was dead, and the elder Gregory, a man of fifty-six or eight, came to the office only once or twice a week. A desk for her had been put in his private room, as it was almost always vacant. It ceased, however, to be vacant as soon as he saw Pearl. He had no idea that he had fallen in love with her--perhaps he had not. He certainly never troubled, her with attentions; as far as she knew he was hardly aware of her existence. His emotion, whatever it was, took the form of quarreling with anyone who did speak to her--even in the course of necessary business. When at last one day he met her and the younger Dixon going out to lunch at the same hour and in the same elevator, but purely by accident, he made such a violent and inexplicable scene that the two younger partners, after consultation, decided that the only thing to do was to get rid of the girl quietly--get her to resign. They were both very nice about it, and themselves found her another place--as secretary to a magazine editor--a man of ice, they assured her. She never saw the elder Mr. Gregory again, and a few months later read in the papers of his death. Her new position went well for several months. The editor was, as represented, a man of ice; but, as Hamlet has observed, being as pure as snow and as chaste as ice does not protect against calumny, and the wife of the editor, entering the office one day to find her husband and his secretary bending over an illegible manuscript, refused to allow such dangerous beauty so near her husband, and Pearl lost her second job. Her next place was with an ambitious young firm which was putting a new cleaning fluid on the market. At first, in a busy office, Pearl seemed to pass almost unnoticed. Then one day the two partners, young men both and heretofore like brothers, came to her together and asked her if she would do the firm a great favor--sit for her portrait to a well-known artist so that they might use her picture as a poster to advertise their product. Pearl consented--she thought it would be rather good fun. The result was successful. Indeed, the only criticism of the picture--which represented Pearl in tawny yellow holding up a saffron-colored robe at which she smiled brilliantly, with beneath it the caption, Why Does She Smile? Because Her Old Dress is Made New by--was that it would have been better to get a real person to sit for the picture, as the public was tired of these idealized types of female beauty. But the trouble started over who was to own the original pastel. It developed that each partner had started the idea from a hidden wish to own a portrait of Pearl. They quarreled bitterly. The very existence of the firm was threatened. An old friend of the two families stepped in and effected a reconciliation, but his decision was that the girl must go. It did not look well for two boys of their age--just beginning in business--to have as handsome a woman as that in the office. People might talk. It was after this--some time after--that Pearl took the place with the Encyclopedia company. Her record began to tell against her. Everyone wanted to know why she changed jobs so often. She thought she had learned her lesson--not to beam, not to be friendly, not to do anyone favors. She had made up her mind to stay with the Encyclopedia forever. She had had no hint of danger. She hardly knew the third vice president by sight--someone in the office had told her a silly story about his crying one day, but she hadn't even believed it. And now she had lost another job--and in July, too, when jobs are hard to find. Heretofore she had always gone docilely. But now she felt she could bear it no longer--she must tell someone what she thought. It was four o'clock on a hot summer afternoon, and round the board-room table the members were saying "aye" and "no" and "I so move," while their minds were occupied with the questions that do occupy the mind at such times--golf and suburban trains, and whether huckleberry pie in hot weather hadn't been a mistake--when the glass door opened and a beautiful girl came in like a hurricane. She had evidently been talking for some seconds when she entered. She was saying, "----are just terrible. I want to tell you gentlemen, now that I have you together, that I think men are just terrible." She had a curious voice, deep and a little rough, more like a boy's than a woman's, yet a voice which when you once knew Pearl you remembered with affection. "This is the fourth job I've lost because men have no self-control. I do my work. I don't even speak to any of you--I'd like to--I'm human, but I don't dare any more. I attend to business, there's no fault found with my work--but I've got to go because some man or other can't work in the office with me. Why not? Because he has no self-control--and not ashamed of it--not ashamed, that's what shocks me. Why, if a girl found she couldn't do her work because there was a good-looking man in the office, she'd die rather than admit she was so silly. But what does a man do? He goes whining to the president to get the poor girl dismissed. There it is! I have to go!" And so on, and so on. The board was so astonished at her entrance, at the untrammeled way in which she was striding up and down, digging her heels into the rug and flinging her arms about as she talked, that they were like people stunned. They turned their eyes with relief to Mr. Bunner, who came hurrying in behind her. "Miss Leavitt has been dropped," he began, but she cut him short. "I've been dropped," she said, "because----" "Will you let me speak?" said Mr. Bunner--a rhetorical question. He meant to speak in any case. "No," answered Pearl. "Certainly not. Gentlemen, I have been dismissed--I know--because some man in this office has no self-control. I can't identify him, but I have my suspicions." And she cast a dreadful glance at the third vice president. "Why should I go? Why shouldn't he? Crying! Woof! How absurd!" "Leave the room, Miss Leavitt," said the president; but he weakened the effect of his edict by leaning forward with his hand to his ear so as to catch whatever she was going to say next. "I haven't shed a tear since my mother died," said Mr. Rixon rather tearfully to the man next him. "This is not the time to discuss your grievance, Miss Leavitt," said the treasurer, wondering why he had never kept in closer touch with the office; "but if you feel you have a just complaint against the company come to my office tomorrow afternoon----" "I'll not go near your office," said Pearl, and she began again to stride about the room, occasionally stamping her right foot without losing step. "I shall never again go into any office where men are. I won't work for men. They're poor sports; they have no self----" "You said that before," said the treasurer. "----control," Pearl went on, for people in her frame of mind cannot be stopped. "Why shouldn't he go? But no, you have to be protected from a girl like a herd of sheep from a wolf--a girl who hasn't even looked at you, at that. If I had ever spoken to the man----" "Leave the room instantly, Miss Leavitt," said the president, and this time he spoke as if he meant it, for he was afraid the identity of the third vice president might be revealed. Little it mattered to Pearl what the old man meant. "I wouldn't mind so much," she went on, "if you did not all pretend to be so brave and strong--to protect women. You protect each other--that's who you protect." "Come, come," said a member of the board. "This isn't the way to keep a job, you know." "I don't want to keep this job. I want you for once to hear what a woman thinks of the men she works for--a lot of poor sports--and not industrious--none of you work the way girls work for you. Slack, that's what I call you, and lacking in self-control." And she went out as suddenly as she had come in, and slammed the door so hard behind that those members of the board, sitting near it ducked their heads into their collars in fear of falling glass. There was a minute's pause, and then the president said with a slight smile, "Well, Mr. Bunner, I think we all see what you meant when you said this young woman was a disturbing element in the office." "There has never been anything like this before," said Bunner; "never anything in the least like this anywhere I have ever been." "Well," said the treasurer, "I don't suppose we need distress ourselves about her finding another job." There was a certain wistful undercurrent in his tone. "No," said Bunner, slightly misunderstanding his meaning. "She is competent and industrious." "She ought to get married, a pretty girl like that--not go about making trouble in offices," said the president. "I have always been of the opinion," said the third vice president, "that it would be much simpler to run the office entirely with men." "Oh, it would be much better--much better, of course," said Bunner; "only women are so much more accurate about detail, more industrious and less expensive." And as there was no woman present to inquire why then men were so much more desirable, the question dropped, and the president recalled the board's attention to the subject of the paper to be used in their next edition--the topic under consideration when Pearl made her entrance. It was rather hard to take any interest in it now. And so Pearl began once again to go the round of agencies, to interview or be interviewed by office managers, and hear that if she came back in October there might be a chance. But October was three months away, and she could not live three months on something less than a hundred dollars. She even began to scan the columns of the newspapers--from clerks, through stenographers, ushers, and finally winders--she never found out what winders were. If her dear friend and sage adviser, Augusta Exeter, had been in town she could have shared her room; but Augusta was in Vermont, visiting the family of the man she was going to marry. At least, Augusta's last letter had been from Vermont; but as a matter of fact, three days after Pearl left the Encyclopedia's employ Augusta came back to New York. She had had a letter from the agency where her name was registered practically offering a position which sounded too good to refuse. Besides, Augusta did not really like farm life in Vermont, and the Baynes family, for some reason which she could not explain, gave her a composite picture of Horace, her fiancé, which tended to make her love him less. Even New York in midsummer was preferable. Therefore it happened that as Pearl wandered, lonely as a cloud, from office to office, longing for her friend's wisdom, Augusta herself was sitting in the outer office of a company, looking for a job. Though the office was that of the Finlay-Wood Engineering Co., the position which Miss Augusta Exeter was considering was that of a governess. She was not at all sure that she wanted the place. College women are not well disposed toward positions as governesses; yet as Miss Exeter sat there in the busy outer office and watched the office boys coming in and out, and the impassive young woman at the switchboard, enunciating again and again, "Finlay-Wood Company," "Hold the wire," she went over the advantages of this offer--a high salary, the two hottest months of the summer at Southampton, and the fact that as she was to be married in October, she could not take a long-time position in any case. Mr. Wood's secretary, with whom so far all the negotiations had been carried on, had impressed upon her the necessity of being punctual--"eleven precisely," he had said, for it seemed Mr. Wood was going to Mexico that afternoon. And so Augusta, who was punctual by nature, had found herself in the office ten minutes ahead of time. She sat listening to the telephone girl and watching a door which bore the simple inscription, "Mr. Wood." And just behind that door a tall sunburned man in the neighborhood of thirty was standing, slapping the pockets of his blue serge clothes and saying, "Griggs, I have a feeling I've forgotten something. What is it I've forgotten, Griggs?" The desk was as bare as a desk ought to be when its owner is going away for two months. Griggs ran his eye proudly over it. "No, Mr. Wood," he said. "I don't think anything has been forgotten. Nothing was left except the letter to the President, the Spanish dictionary and the Mexican currency. All that has been attended to." He consulted a list held in the palm of his hand. "It was something of my own," said Wood, and he eyed his secretary with an air that might have appeared stern but was merely concentrated, when the door opened and the office boy came in and said, "Miss Stone says she's notified him that there's a lady there to see him, and will we let her in to him?" "A lady?" said Griggs severely. "That's it," said Wood. "It's the governess for my sister. Think of my nearly forgetting that!" "You ought not be worried about such things," said Griggs, as if he were very bitter about it, "with all your responsibilities." Wood smiled. It wasn't true, but it was the way one's secretary ought to feel. "I'd have a lot more to worry me," he said, "if I were married myself." "You certainly would," answered Griggs, who was married. "But will we let her in to him?" said the office boy, who clung to this formula, although the head clerk was trying to break him of it. "You may let her come in," said Griggs, as if he would perish rather than allow his chief to hold verbal communication with anything so low as an office boy, and as he spoke he silently gave Wood a pale-blue card--one of a dozen on which in beautiful block letters he had written down the names, degrees, past experience, with notes on personal appearance, of all the candidates for position of governess in the household of Wood's sister, Mrs. Conway. "This is the best of them?" said Wood, and he ran his eye rapidly over the card, which read: "Augusta Exeter, A. B. Rutland College; Ph. D., Columbia University, specialized in mathematics and household management." He looked up. "Queer combination, isn't it?" "I thought it was just what you wanted," answered Griggs reproachfully. "Nothing queerer than that," said Wood, and went on: "Six-month dietary expert--one year training--appearance, pleasing." He glanced at his secretary. It amused him to think of the discreet Griggs appraising the appearance of these young women. "What system did you mark them on, Griggs?" he asked, but got no further, for the door opened and Miss Exeter entered, and Griggs, with his unfailing discretion, left. Wood looked at her and saw that Griggs as usual had been exactly right--she was neither more nor less than pleasing--a small, slim, pale girl, whose unremarkable brown eyes radiated a steady intelligence. Wood had employed labor in many parts of the world, from Chile to China, and he had a routine about it--a preliminary intelligence test, which he applied. "Sit down, Miss Exeter," he said. "I think it will save us both time if you will tell me all that you know about this position"--this was the test--"and then I'll fill in." Augusta sat down. She found herself a trifle nervous. This man impressed her, for since her childhood she had cherished a secret romantic admiration for men who exercised any form of power--kings and generals and men of great affairs. It was a feeling that had nothing to do with real life and represented no disloyalty to her fiancé, Horace Bayne, who exercised no power of any kind. One reason why it had had no relation to life was that she had not met any men of this type. Even in the outer office she had been impressed by the sense of a man waited on and protected by secretaries and office boys as an Eastern princess is waited upon by slaves. And now when she saw him she saw that he had exactly the type of looks she admired most--tall, a little too thin, his face tanned to that shade of _café au lait_ that the blond Anglo-Saxon acquires under the sun--those piercing bright-blue eyes--that large handsome hand, which, with the thumb in his waistcoat pocket, was so clearly outlined against the blue serge of his clothes. She said rather uncertainly, "I know that Mrs. Conway is a widow with three children----" Even this much was wrong. "Not, a widow," he said; "divorced." "----with three children," Augusta went on; "a girl of seventeen, a boy of fifteen and a little girl of eleven. I know that during your absence you want someone to take the care and responsibility of the children off your sister's shoulders." He smiled--his teeth seemed to have the extraordinary whiteness that is the compensation of a dark skin. "I see," he said, "that Griggs has been discreet again." He glanced at his watch. "I'm going to Mexico in a few hours, Miss Exeter. I have just twenty-five minutes. If in that time I am not thoroughly indiscreet I can't look to you for any help. The situation is this: My sister married Gordon Conway when she was very young--eighteen; he turned out to be a gambler. I don't know whether you've ever known any gamblers"--Miss Exeter never had--"but they are a peculiar breed--the real ones--charming--friendly--gay--open-handed when they are winning; they become the most inhuman devils in the world when they are losing. Never get tied up to a gambler. During my poor sister's romance and marriage Conway was winning--large sums--on the races. But that stopped a month or so after their marriage, and ever since then, as far as I know, he has lost--in stocks, at Monte Carlo, and finally at every little gambling casino in Europe. After about six years of it we managed to get her a divorce. She has entire control of the children, of course. Conway has sunk out of sight. Oh, once in a while he turns up and tries to get a little money from her, but fortunately what little she inherited from my father came to her after her divorce, or otherwise he'd have managed to get it away from her. She's very generous--weak--whichever you call it. One of the things I'm going to ask you to do is to prevent her seeing him at all, and certainly prevent her letting him have any money. Though it isn't likely to happen. I believe he's abroad. "The great point is the children. I'm sorry to say that it seems to me my sister is ruining three naturally fine children as rapidly as a devoted mother can. Of course, many parents are over indulgent, but my sister not only indulges her children but gives them at the same time the conviction that they are such interesting and special types that none of the ordinary rules apply to them. The elder girl, Dorothy, is a pretty, commonplace American girl--no fault to find with her except that her mother treats her as if she were an empress. If, for instance, her mother keeps her waiting five minutes she behaves as if she were an exiled queen faced by treachery among her dependents--won't speak to her mother perhaps for a day. And if I say--which I oughtn't to do, for it's no use--'Isn't Dorothy a trifle insolent?' my sister answers, 'I'm so delighted to see that she isn't growing up with the inferiority complex that I had as a girl.' The boy is a perfectly straight manly boy, but he smokes constantly--at fifteen--and when I criticize him my sister says before him, 'Well, Anthony, you know you smoke yourself. I can't very well tell Durland it's a crime. Besides, I have the theory that if he smokes enough now he'll be tired of it by the time he grows up.'" "But that isn't sound," said Miss Exeter, quite shocked at the sketch she was hearing. "Habits formed in youth----" "Of course it isn't sound," said Wood. "And as a matter of fact, my sister never thought of it until I objected. She evolves these theories merely for the sake of protecting her children. Oddly enough, she not only doesn't want to change them herself but she doesn't want any one else to change them. Three years ago I engaged in a life-and-death struggle with her to get Durland--the boy--to boarding school. She advanced the following arguments against it: First, that he was a perfectly normal, manly boy and did not need to go; second, that he was of a peculiar, artistic, sensitive temperament and would be wrecked by being made to conform to boarding-school standards; third, that none of the successful men of the country had gone to boarding school; fourth, that success was the last thing she desired for any son of hers; fifth, that she did not wish to remove him from the benefits of my daily influence; and sixth, that I was a person of no judgment and absolutely wrong about its being wise for a boy to go to school." "And is he at school?" Miss Exeter inquired politely. "Oh, yes," answered Wood, without seeing anything amusing in her question. "Although my sister does a good deal to counteract the effect--by making fun of the teachers and the rules, and always bringing him, when she goes to visit him, whatever is specially forbidden, like candy and cigarettes and extra pocket money. You see, that's where it's going to be hard for you. She not only doesn't want to discipline them herself but she's against any person or institution that tries to do it for her. As soon as you begin to accomplish anything with the children--as I'm sure you will do--she'll be against you; she'll want you to go." "That makes it pretty hopeless, doesn't it?" said Miss Exeter. He shook his head briskly. "No," he said; "for I have made her promise that she won't send you away, no matter what happens, until I get back. I know what was in her mind when she gave the promise--that she could make it so unpleasant for you that you'd go of your own accord. So, Miss Exeter, I want you to promise me that you won't go, no matter how disagreeable she makes it----" "Oh, Mr. Wood, I couldn't do that," said Augusta. "There's no use in going at all otherwise," he said. "Oh, come, be a sport! I'll make it worth while. I'll give you a bonus of five hundred dollars if you're still on the job when I get back--or I'll bring you a turquoise--I'm going down to inspect the best mine in the world. You see, I feel this means the whole future of those children--to be with a woman like you. I know you could do with them just what I want done." "You may be mistaken about that, Mr. Wood." "I may be, but I'm not." The blue eyes fixed themselves on her. She said to herself that it was the five hundred dollars--so desirable for a trousseau--that turned the scale, but the blue eyes and the compliment had something to do with her decision. "It seems a reckless thing to promise," she murmured with a weak laugh. "No, not at all. I wouldn't let you do anything reckless." He spoke as a kindly grandfather might speak. "And now we have ten minutes left, and I want to talk to you about the little one--Antonia." His face softened, and after a slight struggle he yielded to a smile. "The truth is," he said, "that she's much my favorite. She's intelligent and honest, and the justest person of any age or sex that I ever knew in my life." He paused a second. "Perhaps it is because I'm fonder of her than of the other two, but it seems to me my sister is particularly unwise about Antonia." His mind went back to his parting the evening before with this small niece. He and his sister had been sitting on the piazza of the house they had taken at Southampton--at least she had taken it and he had paid for it. Only a few yards away the Atlantic, in one of its placid lakelike moods, was hissing slowly up and down on the sand. The struggle about a governess had been going on for several weeks. So far Mrs. Conway had won, for this was his last evening and none had been engaged. She had a wonderful method for dealing with her brother--a method to be commended to all weak people trying to get the maximum of interest and the minimum of control from stronger natures. She listened to everything he said as if she were wholly convinced by his words and intended to follow his advice to the last detail, and then she went away and did just what she had always meant to do. If he reproached her she looked at him wonderingly and said: "But, Anthony dear, I did agree with you at the time; but afterward, when I came to think----" Oh, how well he knew that dread phrase, "afterward, when I came to think!" By these methods she had managed to fend off action for three weeks, agreeing with him most cordially that the children ought to have a governess, but thinking, after he had gone to New York for the week, that it would be nice for them to take French lessons with that charming French lady in the village, or that perhaps the Abernathys' governess would come over for an hour a day---- And now on his last evening he had outmaneuvered her by announcing that he was interviewing candidates the next morning before he took his train, and would send her the best. "I'm sure it's very kind of you to take all this trouble, Tony," she said. "Don't send me anyone too hideous, will you?" "Griggs describes the young woman I have in mind as of pleasing appearance." "That means perfectly hideous." "You wouldn't want a prize beauty, would you?" "Certainly I would. I like to have lovely things about me. I suppose you think that's idiotic." He assured her that he never thought her idiotic--at least not unintentionally--and went on to obtain the famous pledge--the promise that she would keep the governess he sent her until his return in September. She agreed finally, partly because it was getting late and she was sleepy, partly because she reflected that there were more ways of getting rid of governesses than by sending them away. "I'm so sleepy," she said, yawning, "and yet I don't quite like to go to bed until Antonia comes in." "Antonia?" said Wood. "I thought she went to bed at nine." It appeared that Antonia had formed the habit lately of sleeping on the beach--at least for the earlier part of the night--just digging a hole and curling up there. Her mother thought it an interesting, primitive, healthy sort of instinct. "And yet," she added thoughtfully, as if she knew she were a little finicky, "I don't like to lock up the house until she comes in." "I think you're right," said her brother. These were the things that terrified him so--a little girl out in the blackness of that beach in her pajamas. How could he go to Mexico and leave her? He rose and went to the edge of the piazza, which rested on the dunes. He could see nothing but the stars. "Shall I call her?" he said. "I hate to wake her; but--yes, just give a call." He shouted, and in a few seconds a faint, cheerful hullo reached them, and a little figure appeared over the dunes. "Were you asleep, darling?" said her mother. "No, I was swimming," said Antonia. She stepped within the circle of light from the windows, and Wood could see that her dark curly hair was plastered to her head, and her pajamas clung to her like tissue paper. "I love to swim at night," she said. "It makes you feel like a spirit." She shared her more important thoughts with her uncle. Then, turning to her mother, she advanced toward her with outstretched arms as if to clasp her in a wet embrace. "Look out for your mother's dress," said Wood, for Edna Conway was as usual perfectly dressed in white. She smiled at him and took the child to her breast. "Dear Anthony," she said, "if you were married you'd know that a woman loves her children better than her clothes." He was silent, wondering if she knew how much she had had to do with the fact that he wasn't married. He had no taste for masculine women, and yet Edna had made him distrustful of all femininity which sooner or later developed the sweet obstinacy, the clinging pig-headedness, the subtle ability, under the idiotic coyness of a kitten, to get its own way. Well off and physically attractive, he had not been neglected by women, but always sooner or later it had seemed to him that he had seen the dread shadow of kittenishness. Cattishness he could have borne, but the kitten in woman disgusted him. "And, dearest," his sister was saying to her daughter, "you won't go to bed in your wet things, will you?" Antonia shook her finger at her mother. "Now don't begin to be fussy," she said, not impudently, but as one equal gives advice to another. Yet even this mild suggestion of reproof was painful to Edna. She turned to her brother and said passionately, "I'm not fussy, am I? I don't see how you can say that, Antonia. It's only that your uncle wouldn't close an eye if he thought you were sleeping in damp pajamas; would you, Anthony?" And she laughed gayly. This was one of her most irritating ways--to pretend that she was just a wild thing like the children, but that to oblige some stuffy older person she was forced to ask the children to conform. "I might close an eye, at that," said Anthony. The whole incident had finally decided him to take the prospective governess entirely into his confidence. He had thought at first it would be more honorable to let her discover the situation for herself, but now he saw that she would need not only all his knowledge of the situation but the full conviction that he was backing her, whatever she did. He became convinced of this even before he saw Miss Exeter. Having seen her, he had no further hesitation. He thought her as sensible a person as he had ever met. She sat there in the hard north light of his office, noting down now and then a few words in a little black notebook. She was not only sensible--she was to be depended on. "The truth is," he said, "that Antonia, not to put too fine a point on it, is not personally clean." Miss Exeter smiled, for to her mind the tone of agony in his voice was exaggerated. "But at a certain age no children are," she said. "But most children are forced to be, and my sister lets this child run wild, so that people talk about it. I suppose I oughtn't to mind so much," he said, looking at her rather wistfully; "but you can't imagine how I hate to think that people discuss Antonia's being dirty. And all my sister says is that she's so glad the child isn't vain. Oh, Miss Exeter, if you could get Antonia dressed like a nice, well brought up little girl I think I'd do anything in the world for you." She promised that too. In fact, by the time she finally left the office and was on her way uptown, late for an engagement she had with Horace Bayne, she was alarmed to remember how many things she had promised--not only to stay until he came back but to write to him every day, a long report of just what had happened in the family and what her impressions of it were. "Not letters," he had said, "because I shan't answer them; but reports--reports on my family, as I am going to make a report on this mine." They were to be typewritten. He had no intention of struggling with any woman's handwriting, though Augusta murmured that hers was considered very legible. It was not her custom to take a definite step like this without consulting Horace--not so much because Horace insisted on it as because she thought highly of his opinion. She was astonished now, as in the Subway she thought over the interview, to find how little she had been thinking of Horace. They had been engaged for something over two years, one of those comfortable engagements, which until recently had had no prospects of marriage. The Rutland College Club is almost deserted in summer. As she ran upstairs to the library, where she was to meet Horace, she glanced at her watch and saw to her regret that he must have been waiting almost an hour, for he was punctual, and usually arrived a little ahead of the hour. She was sorry--such a busy man; but he would understand--she would explain---- He rose from a deep chair as she entered--a serious young man whom everyone trusted at first sight. She saw he looked a little more serious than usual, and her sense of guilt made her attribute this seriousness to her own fault. She began to explain quickly and with unaccustomed vivacity. She sketched the interview--Mr. Wood--his office--the promise--the letters--the turquoise. Horace kept getting more and more solemn, although it seemed to her that she made a very good story of it--more amusing perhaps than the reality had been. "Isn't it exciting?" she said. "I'm going down on Thursday, under this contract, to stay two months." "No, you're not," said Horace. She stared at him. He had never spoken like that in all the years she had known him. "What do you mean, dear?" she said rather reprovingly. "You were so busy telling me about this Adonis you're going to work for you did not stop to consider that I might have some news of my own. I've landed that job in Canada, and I'm going there on Friday and you're going with me. You're going to marry me the day after tomorrow and start north on Friday." She stared at him, many emotions succeeding each other on her face. She had given her word--her most solemn word. She could hear Wood's quiet voice asserting his confidence in her. "I know I can depend on you; if you give me your word I know you'll keep it." She could not break it. She said this, expecting that Horace would admire her for her dependability--would at least agree with her that she was doing right. But instead he looked at her with a smoldering expression, and when she had finished he broke out. In fact he made her a scene of jealousy--the first he had ever made--but none the worse for that. For a beginner Horace showed a good deal of talent. He accused her openly of having fallen in love with this fellow; she wasn't a girl to do anything as silly as that except under a hypnotic influence. People did fall in love at first sight. There were Romeo and Juliet; Shakespeare was a fairly wise guy--these letters every day--why, if she wrote to him, Horace, once a week he was lucky--but every day to this man. And jewels and money--no, not much! Jealousy, which is popularly supposed to be an erratic and fantastic emotion, is often founded on the soundest intuition. Augusta found herself hampered in defending herself by a certain inner doubt; and her silence enabled Horace to work himself up to such a pitch that he issued an ultimatum--a dangerous thing to do. She would either marry him and go to Canada with him, or else everything was over between them. It was a terrible situation for Augusta. On the one hand, her spoken word, given to a person whose good opinion she greatly desired, and on the other, her sincere love of Horace, increased by the decisive stand he was taking; for it is unfortunately true that if you do not hate a person for making a scene you love him more. Perhaps Horace saw this. In any case, he would not retreat an inch. This was the situation when the door of the library opened and in came Augusta's friend and classmate, Pearl Leavitt, with whom she had an engagement for luncheon--only in the general strain and excitement of the morning she had entirely forgotten the fact. Pearl, like Augusta herself, was too much occupied with her own mood to notice that a mood was already waiting for her. It seemed to her that Augusta and Horace were just sitting there as usual, without much to say to each other. She had been looking for a job all the morning, and all the day before, and was discovering that beauty may find it as hard to get a job as it had been to keep one. "Hullo, Gussie! Hullo, Horrie!" she said, striding in, full of her own troubles. "I think men are just terrible." "You must have changed a lot," said Bayne, who was in no humor to let anything pass. He had known Pearl since her freshman year at Rutland, and was accustomed to seeing her surrounded by a flock of the condemned sex, whose attentions had never seemed unwelcome. "Yes, I've changed," said Pearl. "You see, I've worked for men--at least I've tried to. I've been trying to all morning. If they kept turning you down because you were lame or marked with smallpox they'd feel ashamed, but if they turn you down because they think you're good-looking----" Miss Leavitt here interrupted her narrative to give a grinning representation of the speaker. "'Forgive my speaking plainly, but you are too good-looking for office work.' Doesn't it occur to them that even good-looking people must eat? And they are so smug and pleased with themselves. Well, here I am with two weeks' salary between me and starvation--all on account of my looks. I believe I'll go and teach in a convent, where there are not any men to be rendered hysterical by my appearance." And she gave a terrible glance at Horace,
{'title': 'The Priceless Pearl by Alice Duer Miller', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}