Signing the Contract and What it Cost

His cheek flushed.

“I shall be of age in a few weeks, and be my own master,” he said, drawing himself up proudly.

“But not mine,” she said very low – so low that he scarcely caught the words – and gently releasing herself from his embrace.

He flushed more hotly than before. “Oh, Floy, have I ever seemed to think it? Nay, have I not rather been your devoted slave?”

“You were always good to me, Espy; always watching over and caring for me, and ready and anxious to give me the best of everything. Oh, I shall never, never forget your goodness! no, not even if – ”

“If what, Floy?”

“Even though another has – has won you – ”

“No, no, never!” he cried, taking her hands again. “I never have, never can love any one but you. Why should you think it?” and he gazed searchingly into her eyes.

Then she told him something of what she had involuntarily heard a few days previous while waiting in Carrie Lea’s bedroom.

He was indignant and evidently surprised to learn that the girl had his photograph; puzzled, too, to conjecture how it had come into her possession.

“It must have been somehow through her brother,” he said after a moment’s thought. “But, Floy, I have never paid her any particular attention,” he added with deprecating look and tone.

“I believe you fully, Espy,” she replied, with a confiding smile; “but since I have released you from your engagement to me – ”

“I do not accept my release,” he interrupted impulsively, “and that being the case, I am answerable to you for my conduct toward other women.”

She shook her head, and was opening her lips to speak again, when the sound of approaching steps prevented. She drew hastily away from Espy’s side, and, seating herself by a window, seemed to have her attention fully occupied with something that was going on in the street.

The door opened.

“Miss, Mrs. Lea says you’ll please walk up now to her dressing-room.”

Espy, standing before the grate with his back to the door, turned at the words and made a stride forward, his face blazing with indignation, but only to see Floy’s black skirt vanish through the door, which instantly closed between them.

“What does it mean?” he asked himself half aloud; “I thought she was merely making a morning call, but that fellow spoke to her as if she were a menial like himself.”

There was a sound of light laughter and gay girlish voices on the stairway, and in the hall without, the door again opened, and the smiling face of Miss Carrie Lea looked in.

“The sleigh’s at the door, Mr. Alden, and we’re all ready waiting for you.”

He had engaged to drive out with the ladies at that hour in Mr. Lea’s fine sleigh, behind his handsome, spirited bays; and anxious though he was beyond expression to snatch another interview with Floy by intercepting her as she should leave the house, he felt compelled to go, not being able on the spur of the moment to think of any plausible excuse.

Since there was no alternative, he made the best of it; with smile and jest handed the ladies to their places, tucked the buffalo-robes carefully about them, took his seat by Carrie Lea’s side, and drove off, fervently hoping that something would occur to cause a speedy return.

CHAPTER XX

A SUDDEN SUMMONS

“I tell thee life is but one common care,
And man was born to suffer and to fear.” —

    Prior.
Mrs. Lea’s dressing-room was gorgeous with crimson and gold; they were the prominent colors of its adornment, from the velvet carpet on the floor to the gayly-frescoed ceiling.

The lady herself, arrayed in a morning robe of dark blue silk, and wearing a great quantity of heavy jewelry, reclined upon a crimson-satin-covered couch. She evidently belonged to the shoddy aristocracy, and her sallow, slightly-wrinkled face expressed nothing but supercilious pride and fretful discontent.

She greeted Floy with an angry nod and the question: “What’s the reason Mrs. Sharp sends you instead of coming herself? You can tell her I don’t like such treatment, and I consider that my money is as good as any other body’s. She says in her note you can fit as well as she can; but I don’t believe it; it stands to reason that a ’prentice-girl couldn’t do as well as her mistress.”

Floy’s cheek flushed, but she stood with an air of dignity, silently waiting for the end of the tirade, then quietly asked:

“Am I to fit your dress, Mrs. Lea?”

“Can you? that’s the question.”

“You have Mrs. Sharp’s opinion in regard to my ability. I can only say that I am ready to do my best, or to return to her with your message, as you please.”

“Well, I guess you may cut and fit the lining, and I can judge by the looks of it whether to allow you to go on and do up the job. Eliza,” turning to her maid, “bring the things. You know where they are.”

Floy had not been invited to sit down, but feeling ill able to stand, quietly took possession of the nearest chair.

Mrs. Lea elevated her eyebrows and muttered something angrily about “impudence and upstarts, and some folks making themselves very much at home in other folks’ houses.”

Floy seemed not to hear, but kept her seat till the maid returned with the required articles, and Mrs. Lea was ready to stand up and be fitted.

This proved a tedious and trying process to both, by reason of Mrs. Lea’s impatience and captiousness; but at length Floy’s efforts resulted in so signal a success that she was graciously permitted, in Mrs. Lea’s phrase, “to go on and do up the job.”

“Why, it fits elegant!” she exclaimed at the final trying on. “I declare Mrs. Sharp couldn’t a done it better herself, and you may tell her I said as much.”

Floy was gratified, for the Leas were among Mrs. Sharp’s best customers. Her patience and forbearance had been sorely tried, but had not failed, and now she was rewarded for the restraint put upon herself.

Her pulses quickened as she passed the library door in going out, though she knew Espy was not there now, for she had heard the departure of the sleighing party, and they had not returned.

Another hour had slipped away before they came, and Espy was met at the door by a telegram to the effect that his mother was lying dangerously ill, and he must hasten home without delay if he would see her alive.

Espy read it at a glance; and turning a pale, agitated countenance upon the servant, who stood waiting,

“I must be gone at once,” he said.

“Yes, sir; I expected as much, and I’ve packed your valise, sir; here it is all right – everything in it that you’d left in your room.”

“Thank you; it was very thoughtful and kind. I will have to leave my adieus to the ladies and gentlemen with you. Tell them I have been suddenly summoned home. My mother is very ill, and I shall have barely time to catch the train. Good-by.”

And dropping a dollar into the man’s hand, Espy seized the valise and rushed away in hot pursuit of a passing street-car.

Even at that moment of grief, anxiety, and haste, he remembered with a sharp pang that this sudden departure robbed him of the opportunity to obtain another interview with Floy or to learn her address.

During the two hours’ drive his thoughts had been so full of her, their late interview, and plans for securing another, that he found no little difficulty in attending to the small talk of his companions, and was more than once rallied by them upon his absence of mind.

It was the more annoying since he was the only gentleman of the party, young Lea being confined to his room that day with a severe cold.