Chapter 6 PRISCILLA HAS A SECRET

Peggy was worried about Priscilla. For the first time in their years of intimacy she could not understand her friend; and worst of all, it seemed out of the question to discuss the situation and come to an understanding.

"Do you think she can like him?" Peggy asked the other Friendly Terrace girls despairingly. "Because he's always seemed to me almost a joke. I don't know how I could bear to have Priscilla fall in love with a man I wanted to laugh at."

Though both girls would have been glad to reassure her, an ominous silence followed her outbreak. "There's no accounting for tastes," said Ruth at length, a suggestion of superiority in her tone.

"Priscilla ought to have a good talking to," exclaimed Amy. "She's got plenty of sense, and to think of her letting Horace Hitchcock hang around! I'd like to tell her-"

"You mustn't, Amy," Peggy interrupted. "It would never do to let her know how you feel about it. That's one of the things that make me so anxious-she's so awfully touchy on the subject of Horace. She won't have him criticized."

Peggy had valiantly done her best to cultivate a liking for Horace Hitchcock. Since the fatal Field Day when he had acted as Priscilla's escort, his attentions had been unremitting. He had called several times a week. He had brought Priscilla flowers and boxes of candy, to say nothing of books of poems, from which he had read aloud to her by the hour. Peggy, assuming that since Priscilla was seeing so much of Horace, he must be quite a different person from what she supposed, had invited him to her home along with the others of her little circle, only to find it would not do. Horace and the others would not mix any more than oil and water.

"For Heaven's sake, don't ask that Hitchcock here again," Graham implored Peggy, after an evening that had been a failure, socially considered. "He puts on airs as if he were the Prince of Wales-no, that's not fair to the prince. But Hitchcock is a snob and a sissy and he makes me tired."

"But if Priscilla likes him, Graham-"

"She can't," Graham had argued, not unreasonably. "She must see through him just as the rest of us do; and even while she's so pleasant to him, she must be laughing in her sleeve."

But reasonable as Graham's stand had seemed, Priscilla was in no mood to laugh at Horace Hitchcock. Indeed, she was deliberately shutting her eyes to his weaknesses, and holding before herself such an idealized likeness of the real Horace that no one but herself would have recognized it. Horace's attentions flattered her vanity. Every call helped to reassure her anxiety in the matter of her own attractiveness. Moreover, Priscilla was a little dazzled by Horace's seeming familiarity with the people whose names were chronicled in the society columns of the daily paper. She had seen for herself that Mrs. Sidney Vanderpool regarded him with favor, and Horace had been at some pains to let her know that other ladies, some of them young and beautiful, held him in equally high esteem. That he should leave girls, who could not go to New York for a week without the fact brought to the public attention in the daily papers, in order that he might spend his evenings with her, gave Priscilla an intoxicating sense of power.

But foolish as this all was, worse was to come, and all because Amy disregarded Peggy's prudent counsel. Peggy had discovered an undue sensitiveness in Priscilla, where Horace was concerned, and had been sensible enough to perceive that any criticism of her ardent admirer, instead of prejudicing Priscilla against him, was likely to have the opposite effect. It hardly need be said that Amy did not flout Peggy's advice, but in the course of a conversation with Priscilla she lost her temper and subsequently her head.

It began with a most amiable intention on Amy's part. "Is Horace coming up to-night?" she asked Priscilla, as the two strolled along the Terrace in the hazy hush of a summer afternoon.

"I-I shouldn't be surprised to see him," owned Priscilla, with a becoming blush.

"Bob telephoned me this morning that he'd be up. If Horace comes, bring him over and I'll try to get Peggy and Ruth-"

"Shall you ask Nelson Hallowell?" Priscilla inquired, a reservation in her tone which Amy did not understand.

"I'll tell Ruth to bring him if he comes, and he's pretty sure to be on hand," laughed Amy. "He's making up for the chances he missed when he was in the service."

"Then I'm afraid we can't come," said Priscilla. "Horace thinks Bob Carey is fine, and he rather likes Graham, but he draws the line at Nelson."

Amy stopped short, her plump face crimson. "Please tell me what you mean by his drawing the line?"

"Well, Amy, I've no doubt that Nelson is a very fine fellow, as far as morals go, but his social position, you know-"

"What about it?" As the two girls were standing side by side, it was quite unnecessary for Amy to speak so loudly. Her defiant tone seemed to challenge the entire block.

"Hush, Amy. I'm not deaf. Of course Nelson comes from quite an ordinary family, and he's only a clerk, and Horace really doesn't care to meet him socially."

Amy burst into an angry laugh. "Horace Hitchcock said that. What a joke!"

"I don't quite understand you, Amy." Priscilla spoke with extreme frigidity.

"Why, there's enough in Nelson Hallowell's little finger to make several Horaces. To think of that dandified little manikin's turning up his nose at a fellow like Nelson."

"Amy Lassell, how dare you?"

"Oh, fudge, Priscilla, you know perfectly well what Horace Hitchcock is, and you needn't pretend to admire him, for I know better."

"I won't listen to you any longer," cried Priscilla furiously, "slandering my friends." She turned abruptly and crossed the street. The two girls continued on their homeward way with the width of the Terrace between them, each looking steadily ahead, ignoring the other's presence.

Before Amy reached home she was sorry. She saw she had been wrong as well as right. Her whole-hearted championship of Nelson had not necessitated sneering at Horace. Amy realized that Priscilla had good reason to be angry, and resolved on a whole-hearted apology next day.

It was a pity she had not followed up her feeling of penitence by immediate action, for when Horace came that evening he found Priscilla in an unwonted mood. She had dramatized the whole affair to herself. Everyone was unjust to Horace. Even Peggy allowed her childish prejudices to influence her unwarrantedly. But she herself was Horace's friend and she would be loyal to that friendship, cost what it might.

A few minutes after his arrival Horace suggested a walk in the neighboring park, which had been so little "improved" that walking through it was almost like strolling along country lanes. Though the night was warm, most of the populace preferred the movies, and Horace and Priscilla had the park practically to themselves. The night wind sighed languorously through the trees. The air was full of ineffable fragrances.

"Oh, Priscilla," exclaimed Horace suddenly, and caught her hand. It seemed to Priscilla that her heart stood still. There was a note in Horace's voice she had never heard before. She was sure that something wonderful was happening. And the irritating part was that she could not do justice to it, for she kept thinking of something else. She should, she was sure, be entirely absorbed in what Horace was going to say; and right at that moment, she wondered if Ruth and Nelson were sitting on Amy's porch.

"Oh, Priscilla," Horace was murmuring, "Do you not feel as I do, that we have met and loved before? You were mine, Priscilla, when the pyramids were building. You were mine in Babylon. Tell me that you have not forgotten. Tell me that you love me."

It was only about half an hour from that impassioned speech before they were walking home decorously along the lighted streets, but Priscilla had a feeling as if she had been away for months and months. An unbelievable thing had happened. She was engaged. It was understood that the engagement was not to be mentioned at present, not even to Priscilla's father and mother. Horace had said something to the effect that to let outsiders into their secret would bruise the petals of the flower of love, and she had agreed to the postponement of that catastrophe, without asking herself why the flower of love should be so fragile. But the fact remained that she was the second of the quartette to become engaged, and she took a rather foolish satisfaction in the realization. She made up her mind that her former qualms as to her own unattractiveness were without foundation, for otherwise a social favorite like Horace would never have asked her to marry him.

Priscilla's father and mother were on the porch when the young people reached home, and, as it was much too warm to stay indoors, the evening which had contained so thrilling an episode ended rather tamely. Mr. Combs and Horace exchanged ideas on local politics, and Mrs. Combs and Horace expressed themselves on the subject of the weather. Priscilla had nothing to say on either interesting topic. She was trying to realize that some day, instead of saying "Mr. Combs" and "Mrs. Combs," Horace would be addressing her parents as "father" and "mother." This seemed so extraordinary that she was almost inclined to believe that she had dreamed the whole thing, though the significantly tender pressure of Horace's fingers, as he said good-night, assured her to the contrary.

Priscilla slept very poorly that night. Her dreams were troubled. And each time she woke, which was on the average of once an hour, she had a dreadful sense of impending disaster. On each occasion it took her several minutes to convince herself that nothing was wrong, that instead she was a very fortunate and happy girl, singled out of the world of girls by a most unusual young man. And thus reassured, she would drop off to sleep, to start again with troubled dreams, and to go again through the whole program.

Owing to her restless night, Priscilla overslept and had to dress in a hurry to avoid being late to breakfast. By expedition she reached the dining room just after her mother had seated herself. Her father followed a half minute later, and leaning over her mother's chair kissed her cheek. "Know what day it is?"

"Of course, silly," laughed Mrs. Combs. "But I'm astonished to hear that you do."

Smiling broadly, Mr. Combs went around the table and took his seat. "We should have planned a celebration," he remarked.

"What, and advertise our advanced age!" exclaimed his wife in mock consternation.

"That's so," owned Mr. Combs with a chuckle. "I remember when a silver wedding seemed to me significant of extreme age. What do you think, daughter, of having parents old enough to have been married twenty-five years?"

Then Priscilla knew what was the matter with her. She thought of sitting opposite Horace Hitchcock twice a day, year in and year out, for a quarter of a century, and her heart turned sick within her. All at once she knew how his affections of manner would grate on one who watched them for twenty-five years. He had a way of raising his eye-brows and pursing his mouth which, she was convinced, would drive her frantic in course of time. And then her relentless common-sense, awake at last, went on to assure her that the Horace Hitchcock who had made love to her in the park the previous evening was in all essentials the smug, vain little boy nobody liked. She watched her father and mother exchanging smiles and knew that such good comradeship between Horace and herself was unthinkable. She doubted if there would be a smile left in her after twenty-five years of his society.

"You look tired this morning, Priscilla," said Mr. Combs. "And I can't say I wonder. That admirer of yours makes me rather-"

"He's a very pleasant boy, I'm sure," interrupted Mrs. Combs hastily, "though I wish his manners were just a little simpler. But he always looks so neat that it's refreshing to the eye. And by the way, dear, I think you had better see your tailor and get samples for your fall suit. You've got to the point where you must have something."

Priscilla did not notice her mother's dextrous changing of the subject. She was too absorbed in looking ahead twenty-five weary years. Of course, in view of her discovery, the only sensible thing to do was to get in touch with Horace, and tell him that the lady with whom he had been on such friendly terms in Babylon was an entirely different person. But that sane and simple way of escape never occurred to Priscilla. She had given her word. She must stand by it, no matter what it cost.

Amy came over about eleven o'clock, looking very penitent. "Priscilla," she said, "I don't blame you a bit for getting angry yesterday. I'm ashamed of what I said. Of course," added Amy, her natural candor getting the better of her, "Horace Hitchcock doesn't appeal to me, but that doesn't excuse me for calling him a manikin, and you have a right to choose your friends to please yourself."

Priscilla's acceptance of this apology took Amy by surprise. She dropped her head on her visitor's shoulder-as Priscilla was tall and Amy was short, this was a feat requiring considerable dexterity-and burst into tears.

* * *