Part 10

She strode to her sister and tapped her lightly on the shoulder with the riding stick.

"Be careful," cautioned Martha. "You know how easily my flesh mars--and I'm going to wear my low neck to-night."

Jane did not heed. "David Hull is a bore--and a fraud," she said. "I tell you I'd rather marry Victor Dorn."

"Do be careful about my skin, dear," pleaded Martha. "Hugo'll be SO put out if there's a mark on it. He's very proud of my skin."

Jane looked at her quizzically. "What a dear, fat old rotter of a respectability it is, to be sure," said she--and strode from the room, and from the house.

Her mood of perversity and defiance did not yield to a ten mile gallop over the gentle hills of that lovely part of Indiana, but held on through the afternoon and controlled her toilet for the ball. She knew that every girl in town would appear at that most fashionable party of the summer season in the best clothing she could get together. As she had several dresses from Paris which she not without reason regarded as notable works of art, the opportunity to outshine was hers--the sort of opportunity she took pleasure in using to the uttermost, as a rule. But to be the best dressed woman at Mrs. Bertram's party was too easy and too commonplace. To be the worst dressed would call for courage--of just the sort she prided herself on having. Also, it would look original, would cause talk--would give her the coveted sense of achievement.

When she descended to show herself to her father and say good night to him, she was certainly dressed by the same pattern that caused him to be talked about throughout that region. Her gown was mussed, had been mended obviously in several places, had not been in its best day becoming. But this was not all. Her hair looked stringy and dishevelled. She was delighted with herself. Except during an illness two years before never had she come so near to being downright homely. "Martha will die of shame," said she to herself. "And Mrs. Bertram will spend the evening explaining me to everybody." She did not definitely formulate the thought, "And I shall be the most talked about person of the evening"; but it was in her mind none the less.

Her father always smoked his after-dinner cigar in a little room just off the library. It was filled up with the plain cheap furniture and the chromos and mottoes which he and his wife had bought when they first went to housekeeping--in their early days of poverty and struggle. On the south wall was a crude and cheap, but startlingly large enlargement of an old daguerreotype of Letitia Hastings at twenty-four--the year after her marriage and the year before the birth of the oldest child, Robert, called Dock, now piling up a fortune as an insider in the Chicago "brave" game of wheat and pork, which it is absurd to call gambling because gambling involves chance. To smoke the one cigar the doctor allowed him, old Martin Hastings always seated himself before this picture. He found it and his thoughts the best company in the world, just as he had found her silent self and her thoughts the best company in their twenty-one years of married life. As he sat there, sometimes he thought of her--of what they had been through together, of the various advances in his fortune--how this one had been made near such and such anniversary, and that one between two other anniversaries--and what he had said to her and what she had said to him. Again--perhaps oftener--he did not think of her directly, any more than he had thought of her when they sat together evening after evening, year in and year out, through those twenty-one years of contented and prosperous life.

As Jane entered he, seated back to the door, said:

"About that there Dorn damage suit----"

Jane started, caught her breath. Really, it was uncanny, this continual thrusting of Victor Dorn at her.

"It wasn't so bad as it looked," continued her father. He was speaking in the quiet voice--quiet and old and sad--he always used when seated before the picture.

"You see, Jenny, in them days"--also, in presence of the picture he lapsed completely into the dialect of his youth--"in them days the railroad was teetering and I couldn't tell which way things'd jump. Every cent counted."

"I understand perfectly, father," said Jane, her hands on his shoulders from behind. She felt immensely relieved. She did not realize that every doer of a mean act always has an excellent excuse for it.

"Then afterwards," the old man went on, "the family was getting along so well--the boy was working steady and making good money and pushing ahead--and I was afeared I'd do harm instead of good. It's mighty dangerous, Jen, to give money sudden to folks that ain't used to it. I've seen many a smash-up come that way. And your ma--she thought so, too--kind of."

The "kind of" was advanced hesitatingly, with an apologetic side glance at the big crayon portrait. But Jane was entirely convinced. She was average human; therefore, she believed what she wished to believe.

"You were quite right, father," said she. "I knew you couldn't do a bad thing--wouldn't deliberately strike at weak, helpless people. And now, it can be straightened out and the Dorns will be all the better for not having been tempted in the days when it might have ruined them."

She had walked round where her father could see her, as she delivered herself of this speech so redolent of the fumes of collegiate smugness. He proceeded to examine her--with an expression of growing dissatisfaction. Said he fretfully:

"You don't calculate to go out, looking like that?"

"Out to the swellest blow-out of the year, popsy," said she.

The big heavy looking head wobbled about uneasily. "You look too much like your old pappy's daughter," said he.

"I can afford to," replied she.

The head shook positively. "You ma wouldn't 'a liked it. She was mighty partic'lar how she dressed."

Jane laughed gayly. "Why, when did you become a critic of women's dress?" cried she.

"I always used to buy yer ma dresses and hats when I went to the city," said he. "And she looked as good as the best--not for these days, but for them times." He looked critically at the portrait. "I bought them clothes and awful dear they seemed to me." His glance returned to his daughter. "Go get yourself up proper," said he, between request and command. "SHE wouldn't 'a liked it."

Jane gazed at the common old crayon, suddenly flung her arms round the old man's neck. "Yes--father," she murmured. "To please HER."

She fled; the old man wiped his eyes, blew his nose and resumed the careful smoking of the cheap, smelly cigar. He said he preferred that brand of his days of poverty; and it was probably true, as he would refuse better cigars offered him by fastidious men who hoped to save themselves from the horrors of his. He waited restlessly, though it was long past his bedtime; he yawned and pretended to listen while Davy Hull, who had called for Jane in the Hull brougham, tried to make a favorable impression upon him. At last Jane reappeared--and certainly Letitia Hastings would have been more than satisfied.

"Sorry to keep you waiting," said she to Hull, who was speechless and tremulous before her voluptuous radiance. "But father didn't like the way I was rigged out. Maybe I'll have to change again."