Part 13

"Come and play a game over in the corner, just till this dance's over, won't you, Sissy?"

"What kind of a game?" she demanded, following him mechanically.

"Oh, a new game. It's lots of fun. I'll show you."

Sissy consented. She could play a game--and she knew she was clever at all games--without fear of betrayal from that red sham which she had been fiercely sitting upon half the afternoon.

Before long, her emulative spirit got her so interested in this particular game that she forgot not only the sham skirt but the sham pretense upon which she had bullied Irene. And she played so well that there was only one forfeit against her name, though Crosby, who had named himself treasurer, held half the bangle bracelets and pins and handkerchiefs of the little circle as evidence of dereliction in others.

He called her name first, as he stood with her little turquoise ring in his hand and an odd light in his eye that might have enlightened her; but she was looking toward the door, where the young gentleman from San Francisco, in a Byronic pose, was staring gloomily at Irene dancing with a rival, and so joying in the dance that she had forgotten all about him.

"Open your mouth and shut your eyes, And I'll give you something to make you wise,"

chanted Crosby, holding out the ring and beckoning to her.

Closing her eyes upon the spectacle of Mr. Morrow's suffering, Sissy opened a mouth about which the malicious smile still lingered.

Crosby hesitated a moment. He was very much afraid of her, but as she stood, docile and innocent, before him, with her eyes shut and her tiny red mouth open, he could not fancy consequences nearly so well as he could picture the thing his wish painted.

In a moment he had realized it, and Sissy, overwhelmed by astonishment, dumb and impotent with the audacity of the unexpected, felt his arms close about her and his greedy lips upon hers.

Oh, the rage and shame of the proper Sissy! Her mouth fell shut and her eyes flew open. And then, if she could, she would have closed them forever; for, before her in the sudden silence, towering above the triumphant and unrepentant Crosby, stood Mrs. Pemberton, a portentous figure of shocked matronly disapproval. And she promptly placed the blame where mothers of sons have placed it since the first similar impropriety was discovered.

"Cecilia!" she cried in that velvety bass that echoed through the room--"Cecilia Madigan, you--teaching my son a vulgar kissing game--you, the good one! Oh, you deceitful little thing!"

A MERRY, MERRY ZINGARA

It had been Crosby Pemberton's custom to climb the steps that led to Madigan's every Wednesday afternoon at four, with his music neatly done up in a roll, on his way to play duets with Sissy.

On the Wednesday that followed his birthday party--the mere mention of which, after the lapse of four days, was enough to send Sissy into hysterics--that young lady was seated in the parlor, ready for her guest. She was ready for him in all the senses a Madigan knew how to infuse into that frame of mind. She intended to make him as miserable as she herself had been ever since that disgraceful episode in which she had so innocently played the victim's part. She would show the betrayer of trust no mercy--none. She would accept no apology. She would trample upon his excuses and tear them limb from limb. She would show him her scorn and detestation and make him feel how everlastingly unforgivable his offense was; then she would send him forth forever from the house, and dare him to so much as speak to her at school.

She pictured him going down the stairs for the last time, utterly wretched, broken, despised, condemned. And in order to make the picture more real, she glanced out of the window. Suddenly her hands flew in terror to her breast, and all her plans for vengeance were left hanging in mid-air; for it was not Crosby's trim little figure that was climbing the steps, but the stately solidity of Mrs. Pemberton herself.

In her extremity, Sissy did not even stop to look at the back legs of the piano; she sped across the room and made a flying leap through the low west window. Mrs. Pemberton, glancing in through the open door as she rang the bell, got a glimpse of two plump disappearing legs, but when she and Miss Madigan entered, there was no trace of Sissy except her jackstones. They stumbled over these, lying scattered on the floor, where she had been sitting waiting for Crosby and concocting schemes of punishment.

"I come to explain--" said Mrs. Pemberton, stiffly and a bit out of breath, seating herself with a rigidity of backbone that would have justified Sissy's bestowal upon her of the nickname Mrs. Ramrod, if she could have seen it. But Sissy, lying attentive beneath the open window, could not see; she could only hear. "I am here to tell you, Miss Madigan, why Crosby did not come to-day to play duets."

"Dear me! didn't he come?" asked Miss Madigan, absently. "He isn't sick, is he? Irene complains of headache and backache, and she's so languid she let Sissy get the wish-bone--I call it the bone of contention--at dinner yesterday without a struggle. I'm half afraid she'll not be able to sing to-night at Professor Trask's concert; but perhaps it's only that she danced too much at Crosby's party. She al--"

"It's about that--about the party that I wanted to speak to you," interrupted Mrs. Pemberton, severely.

"Yes? Such a lovely party, the girls say! I'm sure, Mrs. Pemberton, it's just--"

"Did they tell you what--occurred?"

Miss Madigan blinked reflectively. Her acquaintance with the stately and wealthy Mrs. Warren Pemberton was her most prized social connection. What could have occurred?

"Why, of course, of course!" she laughed after a bit, pleasantly, still trying to remember what the girls had gossiped about. "Delightful, wasn't it?"

Mrs. Pemberton lifted her plumed head with a slow and terrible solemnity. "De-lightful, Miss Madigan, de-lightful!"

The smile vanished from Miss Madigan's face. "I hope, dear Mrs. Pemberton, that the girls did nothing that--that--They're such madcaps, and their father never will--"

Miss Madigan's distress touched her august visitor. "I trust this," she said significantly, "will be a lesson to Mr. Madigan."