The Inner Shrine Part 10

"Is that your daughter?" she asked, glad to escape from her subject, now that it was stated plainly--"the very pretty girl in red?"

The question gave Pruyn the excuse he wanted or looking about him.

"I believe she's in red--but I don't see her."

He searched the dimly lighted room, where Mrs. Wappinger sat, silent and satisfied, behind her tea-table, while Mrs. Eveleth was conversing with Lucilla on Knickerbocker genealogy; but neither of the young people was to be seen. His look of anxiety did not escape Diane, who responded to it with her usual straightforward promptness.

"I fancy she's still in the ball-room with young Mr. Wappinger," she explained. "We were all there a few minutes ago, looking at the decorations for the dance Mrs. Wappinger is giving to-night. It was before you came."

The shadow that shot across his face was a thing to be noticed only by one accustomed to read the most trivial signs in the social sky. In an instant she took in the main points of the case as accurately as if Mrs.

Wappinger had named those names over which she had shown such laudable reserve.

"Wouldn't you like to see them?--the decorations? They're very pretty.

It's just in here."

She rose as she spoke, with a gesture of the hand toward the ball-room.

He followed, because she led the way, but without seeing the meaning of the move until they were actually on the polished dancing-floor. Owing to the darkness of the December afternoon, the large empty room was lit up as brilliantly as at night. For a minute they stood on the threshold, looking absently at the palms grouped in the corners and the garlands festooning the walls. It was only then that Pruyn saw the motive of her coming; and for an instant he forgot his worry in the perception that this woman had divined his thought.

"There's no one here," he said, at last, in a tone of relief, which betrayed him once more.

"No," Diane replied, half turning round. "Perhaps we had better go back to the drawing-room. My mother-in-law will be getting tired."

"Wait," he said, imperiously. "Isn't that--?"

He was again conscious of having admitted her into a sort of confidence; but he had scarcely time to regret it before there was a flash of red between the tall potted shrubs that screened an alcove. Dorothea sauntered into view, with Carli Wappinger, bending slightly over her, walking by her side. They were too deep in conversation to know themselves observed; but the earnestness with which the young man spoke became evident when he put out his hand and laid it gently on the m.u.f.f Dorothea held before her. In the act, from which Dorothea did not draw back, there was nothing beyond the admission of a certain degree of intimacy; but Diane felt, through all her highly trained subconscious sensibilities, the shock it produced in Derek's mind.

The situation belonged too entirely to the cla.s.sic repertoire of life to present any difficulties to a woman who knew that catastrophe is often averted by keeping close to the commonplace.

"Isn't she pretty!" she exclaimed, in a tone of polite enthusiasm.

"Mayn't I speak to her? I haven't met her yet."

Before she had finished the concluding words, or Wappinger had withdrawn his hand from Dorothea's m.u.f.f, she had glided across the floor, and disturbed the young people from their absorption in each other.

"Mr. Wappinger," Derek heard her say, as he approached, "I want you to introduce me to Miss Pruyn. I'm Mrs. Eveleth, Miss Pruyn," she continued, without waiting for Carli's intermediary offices. "I couldn't go away without saying just a word to you."

If she supposed she was coming to Dorothea's rescue in a moment which might be one of embarra.s.sment, she found herself mistaken. No experienced dowager could have been more amiable to a nice governess than Dorothea Pruyn to a lady in reduced circ.u.mstances. A facility in adapting herself to other people's manners enabled Diane to accept her cue; and presently all four were on their way back to the drawing-room, where farewells were spoken.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DRAWN BY FRANK CRAIG PRESENTLY ALL FOUR WERE ON THEIR WAY BACK TO THE DRAWING-ROOM]

While Miss Lucilla was making Mrs. Eveleth renew her promise to come and see her, and "bring young Mrs. Eveleth with her," Pruyn found an opportunity for another word with Diane.

"You must understand," he said, in a tone which he tried to make one of explanation for her enlightenment rather than of apology for Dorothea--"you must understand that girls have a good deal of liberty in America."

"They have everywhere," she rejoined. "Even in France, where they've been kept so strictly, the old law of Purdah has been more or less relaxed."

"If you take up teaching as a work, you'll naturally be thrown among our young people; and you may see things to which it will be difficult to adjust your mind."

"I've had a good deal of practice in adjusting my mind. It often seems to me as movable as if it was on a pivot. I'm rather ashamed of it."

"You needn't be. On the contrary, you'll find it especially useful in this country, where foreigners are often eager to convert us to their customs, while we are tenacious of our own."

"Thank you," she said, in the spirit of meekness his didactic att.i.tude seemed to require. "I'll try to remember that, and not fall into the mistake."

"And if I can do anything for you," he went on, awkwardly, "in the way of schools--or--or--recommendations--you know I promised long ago that if you ever needed any one--"

"Thank you once more," she said, hurriedly, before he had time to go on.

"I know I can count on your help; and if I require a good word, I shall not hesitate to ask you for it."

As she slipped away, Pruyn was left with the uncomfortable sense of having appeared to a disadvantage. He had been stilted and patronizing, when he had meant to be cordial and kind. On the other hand, he resented the quickness with which she had read his thoughts, as well as her perception that he had ground for uneasiness regarding his child. That she should penetrate the inner shrine of reserve he kept closed against those who stood nearest to him in the world gave him a sense of injury; and he turned this feeling to account during the next few hours in trying to deaden the echo of the French voice with the Irish intonation that haunted his inner hearing, as well as to banish the memory of the plaintive smile in which, as he feared, meekness was blended with amus.e.m.e.nt at his expense.

VI

If the secret spring worked by James van Tromp had been an active agency in bringing Diane and Derek Pruyn once more together, as well as in creating the intimacy that sprang up during the next two months between Miss Lucilla and the elder Mrs. Eveleth, it had certainly nothing to do with the South American complications in the business of Van Tromp & Co., which made Pruyn's departure for Rio de Janeiro a possibility of the near future. He had long foreseen that he would be obliged to make the journey sooner or later, but that he should have to do it just now was particularly inconvenient. There was but one aspect in which the expedition might prove a blessing in disguise--he might take Dorothea with him.

During the six or eight weeks following the afternoon at Mrs.

Wappinger's he had bestowed upon Dorothea no small measure of attention, obtaining much the same result as a mastiff might gain from his investigation of the ways of a bird of paradise. He informed himself as to her diversions and her dancing-cla.s.ses, making the discovery that what other girls' mothers did for them, Dorothea was doing for herself.

As far as he could see, she was bringing herself up with the aid of a chosen band of eligible, well-conducted young men, varying in age from nineteen to twenty-two, whom she was training as a sort of body-guard against the day of her "coming out." On the occasions when he had opportunities for observation he noted the skill with which she managed them, as well as the chivalry with which they treated her; and yet there was in the situation an indefinable element that displeased him. It was something of a shock to learn that the flower he thought he was cultivating in secluded sweetness under gla.s.s had taken root of its own accord in the midst of young New York's great, gay parterre. Aware of the possibilities of this soil to produce over-stimulated growth, he could think of nothing better than to pluck it up and, temporarily at least, transplant it elsewhere. Having come to the decision overnight, he made the proposition when they met at breakfast in the morning.

A prettier object than Miss Dorothea Pruyn, at the head of her father's table, it would have been difficult to find in the whole range of "dainty rogues in porcelain." From the top of her bronze-colored hair to the tip of her bronze-colored shoes she was as complete as taste could make her. The flash of her eyes as she lifted them suddenly, and as suddenly dropped them, over her task among the coffee-cups was like that of summer waters; while the rapture of youth was in her smile, and a becoming school-girl shyness in her fleeting blushes. In the floral language of American society, she was "not a bud"; she was only that small, hard, green thing out of which the bud is to unfold itself, but which does not lack a beauty of promise specially its own. If any criticism could be pa.s.sed upon her, it was that which her father made--that there was danger of the promise being antic.i.p.ated by a rather premature fulfilment, and the flower that needed time forced into a hurried, hot-house bloom.

"What! And leave my friends!" she exclaimed, when Derek, with some hesitation, had asked her how she would like the journey.

"They would keep."

"That's just what they wouldn't do. When I came back I should find them in all sorts of new combinations, out of which I should be dropped.

You've got to be on the spot to keep in your set, otherwise you're lost."

"Why should you be in a set? Why shouldn't you be independent?"

"That just shows how much you understand, father," she said, pityingly.

"A girl who isn't in a set is as much an outsider as a Hindoo who isn't in a caste. I must know people; and I must know the right people; and I must know no one but the right people. It's perfectly simple."

"Oh, perfectly. I can't help wondering, though, how you recognize the right people when you see them."

"By instinct. You couldn't make a mistake about that, any more than one pigeon could make a mistake about another, or take it for a crow."

"And is young Wappinger one of the right people?"

It was with an effort that Derek made up his mind to broach this subject, but Dorothea's self-possession was not disturbed.

"Certainly," she replied, briefly, with perhaps a slight accentuation of her maiden dignity.

"I'm rather surprised at that."