CHAPTER VIII
THE ORCHID BROOCH
“Why don’t we begin on the eats?” demanded Billy McGraw. “I am starving in the sight of plenty.”
“He is always that way,” said Tim Turner. “Ever since the time in the trenches there has been no satisfying Billy. Bet anything the trenches will be filled up and leveled over before Billy is filled up.”
“Well, I hope they will be leveled over before I am,” laughed Billy, good-naturedly. “It’s so Miss Wright, I can even eat beans and stew, two things at which most of the returned soldiers balk. Still no one answers me—why do we wait?”
“We are waiting for Danny,” blushed Mary Louise. “He had to leave for a few moments.”
“Tut, tut! Don’t begin by spoiling him.”
“But you couldn’t spoil Danny,” insisted his loyal little fiancée. “I don’t know what he went out for, but I am sure he had some unselfish reason.”
“You can’t spoil me either,” pleaded Billy.
“Any more than you can gild the lily or paint the rose. You are already in a state of decomposition,” put in Tim.
“Somebody take pity on me and feed me! Danny may be gone a year or so. He often goes away and doesn’t return. Even now he may be eating at a restaurant—”
“Here, here’s a sandwich!” said Elizabeth Wright. “Here are two sandwiches and a chicken leg.”
“Gee! You are a nice girl,” cried Billy. “About the nicest girl I know. You’ll be even nicer if you sit over here by me while I get on the outside of this ambrosia.”
He looked at Elizabeth Wright with a feeling of real interest. Up to that moment he had only regarded her as one of the Wright sisters with the managing mother of whom he lived in holy terror. Being an exceedingly well off young man, he was on Mrs. Wright’s list with triple stars as one of the most eligible possibilities in Dorfield. He had felt that the Wright girls were quite as eager for his attentions as their mother, but this Elizabeth seemed to be different from the rest somehow. She did not seem to care whether he paid her attention or not. To be sure, she fed him, but it was with the compassion she might have shown a hungry dog, and when he asked her to sit down by him on the window seat while he ate the purloined sandwiches and chicken leg, she declined, saying she must help Josie unpack and had no time to watch the animals feed.
“Cruel!” he murmured through a muffling tomato sandwich. He could not help smiling to think how Mrs. Wright would have been shocked at a daughter of hers refusing even such a simple invitation as watching a desirable parti eat.
Billy McGraw had been in a fair way to become spoiled with all the money he could spend. He was an only child, with a doting mother of his own and all the managing mammas in Dorfield reaching out after him for their daughters. But the war had come just in time to save him not only from the managing mammas but from himself and the inevitable spoiling that wealth and self-indulgence was sure to bring him. He had enlisted as a private at the first call of his country and the training he had received in the ranks was to prove of life-long benefit to him. His was a lovable nature and it was hardly his fault that he had been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but it was much to his credit that when the test came he was able to dispense with that same silver spoon and could manage to stomach the army beans often without even the formality of a fork. Now that the war was over he had returned to Dorfield with more purpose in his life. He had realized it was up to him to work in spite of his wealth and, having some mechanical skill, he had applied to the Neal Automobile Factory for a job with the determination of learning the business from the beginning. The consequence was he was enjoying his short Saturday as much as any workman in Dorfield. Lunch with a bunch of interesting girls would fully repay him for the job of carpentering and plumbing that Danny Dexter had mapped out for him for the afternoon.
“Here they are!” he shouted, peering down from the window, and in a moment Danny and Bob arrived with Irene borne between them in their improvised basket.
“Oh, Danny! You darling!” cried Mary Louise, rushing forward and embracing Irene, who sat smiling like a queen on her throne. “Here, sit here, Irene, in the seat of honor at the head of the packing box.”
“Wasn’t it lovely of them to come for me?”
“No lovelier than for you to come with us,” said Bob Dulaney in an undertone.
Laura and Lucile had arrived exactly on time and immediately the feast began. There was so much hilarity that the cleaning and dyeing establishment below began to wonder what manner of industry was to be conducted above them and some of the roomers on the third floor crept down and peeped in the door to see what all the fun was about.
In the midst of the luncheon, Mrs. Markle came tripping up the steps.
“Oh, please excuse me, I had no idea of interrupting a party,” she said. “I merely wanted to see Mary Louise for a moment and went by her home and was sent here by her darling old colored butler.”
“Oh, but you are not interrupting, Hortense,” declared Mary Louise, drawing her new friend into the room and introducing her to Josie and some of the young men with whom she was not acquainted. She knew most of the persons seated around the packing boxes.
“You must sit down and have some lunch,” said Josie hospitably. She looked keenly at the new arrival and evidently what she saw pleased her, as she smiled engagingly, making room for Hortense at her own right hand.
Indeed it would have been a critical person who would not have conceded that Hortense Markle was a delightful picture on that pleasant Saturday in May. Her gown was, as usual, exquisite. It was mauve and of soft material that clung to her shapely form. Her hat, a small toque, was formed of orchids and her one ornament was a brooch of wonderful workmanship. It was an orchid of rare beauty made of gold and enamel with a large diamond shining like a dew drop from its centre.
She took her seat, remarking as she did so that, since she had run in on them, she felt sure she would make less disturbance by sitting down than by making all the male guests stand while she transacted her business with Mary Louise.
“She is a lady of discrimination,” declared Billy McGraw to Elizabeth, by whom he had found a seat. “I know you think I am insatiable, but please take another sandwich and make out it is for yourself and then slip it to me. It is working in the factory that makes me so hungry. Sometimes I get empty enough to chew a rubber tire.”
“What a pretty woman!” said Bob Dulaney to Irene, by whose side he had found a seat and to whom he had been talking steadily during the gay luncheon.
“Yes, she is lovely,” said Irene, hoping devoutly her tone of voice was not divulging the feeling of something akin to hate that she could not help nursing for the dainty little newcomer, but, try her best, she could not put into her answer the enthusiasm that she wished to. Bob looked at his companion keenly.
“What’s up!” he asked himself. “Whatever it is, I’ll bet Irene for all Time is in the right. She doesn’t like the pretty lady and I wonder why.” But he said nothing to let Irene know he had fathomed her feelings in the matter.
“Excuse me,” said Billy McGraw, whose eyes showed plainly the admiration he felt for Mrs. Markle, “but do you know I think that’s the most beautiful breast-pin I ever saw except one I saw like it once.”
“Oh, I didn’t know there was one like it in the world,” said Mrs. Markle. “I declare these artists are an unreliable lot. My husband had this made for me by an old goldsmith in Munich. It was after his own design. Poor Mr. Markle worked on it for days and days and took such delight in the fact that it was to be the only thing of its kind in the whole world. Now that wretched old goldsmith has no doubt duplicated it.”
“The one I speak of was made at Tiffany’s. Of course, it too was supposed to be unique. Jerald Thomas had it made for his wife. I fancy old Jerry didn’t do the designing, though, for he is more of an adept on Wall Street reading the ticker than he is drawing orchids. I should like to see it closely if you wouldn’t mind,” he pleaded. “I have a perfect passion for finely wrought gold and enamel.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” answered Mrs. Markle, blushing a bit, which made her even lovelier than before, “but this brooch is a kind of keystone to my costume. You girls will understand, I know,” and she looked appealingly at the females. “Of course, mere man doesn’t know how a woman puts on her frock and then pins it at exactly the right place. I know it doesn’t show, all this care we take, but I am sure, if we didn’t take the care and if we put our brooches in the wrong place and at the wrong angle and had our gowns too tightly drawn up in front or too much open, then you would note the difference. I must confess that, when I dress, I go to work with a certain reverence, the kind of reverence a painter feels for his palette and canvas.”
“Well, far be it from me to ruin the picture,” laughed Billy. “And let me do reverence to the artist,” bowing low. “It was stupid of me to look at such perfection and to ‘consider the lilies’ just as though somebody had not been toiling and spinning to bring forth so much beauty.”
“I know you think I am foolish,” said Mrs. Markle, blushing again.
“Indeed we don’t, Hortense, we think you are exactly right not to ruin the effect of your lovely gown,” put in Mary Louise. “I know just exactly how it is. Sometimes I have a horrid time getting myself to look right and nothing would make me undo the work.”
Everybody laughed at this, as it was a well known fact among Mary Louise’s friends that she spent less time in front of the mirror than any pretty girl ever did. Being blessed with wavy hair that arranged itself, she had nothing to do but coil it in a low knot at the nape of her neck. She had many tastefully chosen gowns but they must be easy to get into with no complications of hooks and buttons to madden her. She often changed her dress on the fly trusting to luck that she was all right. And she usually was.
“Heavens above! I didn’t mean to get in bad. Please, Mrs. Markle, forgive me. It has actually taken my appetite away. I believe everybody here is down on me,” moaned Billy.
“Not at all, Mr. McGraw, and to show that I am not I’ll ask you to come call on us at our apartment and then you can see my little breast-pin to your heart’s content.”
“Thank you! Thank you! Now I believe I will have another piece of cake. My appetite is restored,” grinned Billy.
Bob Dulaney looked thoughtfully at Irene while the above conversation was carried on. His eye fell on the brooch at her throat, a pretty little enameled violet, as modest at the model from which it was taken and as unassuming as its wearer. He wondered if Irene could take off her pin without upsetting her costume. He smiled at the thought. On Irene’s smooth brow was a slight pucker and in her honest clear eyes he could detect a slight suggestion of scorn. It passed immediately and her usual placid expression returned, but the young man wondered again what the lame girl had against the beautiful Mrs. Markle and if she had any reasons for what he felt was a distrust of the fair stranger. He looked up and caught a twinkle in the eye of Josie O’Gorman. As though conscious that someone was catching her twinkling when she had no idea of letting anyone onto the fact that she was amused, Josie immediately took on the dull fish-eyed expression which was the despair of her friends.
“Umhum!” said Bob Dulaney to himself. “These girls are up to something, at least that funny red-headed one is.” And having a nose for news, an essential to every good newspaper man, he began to go over the situation in his mind.
“Enter a beautiful stranger, known to most of the company! Immediately Irene, who seems to be all kindliness and loveliness, shows what might almost be called temper, except that it was so carefully kept in that one could hardly see it. The beautiful stranger refuses with the utmost tact to take off her breast-pin, giving what seemed a good excuse and again Irene’s fair brow is clouded and the little red-headed girl who is going to help keep the Higgledy-Piggledy Shop is plainly amused, even delighted, but does not want anybody to know how she feels. A mystery is a mystery and, even though it prove nothing more than some kind of girlish foolishness or jealousy, me for the solving of it!”