When a Man Marries | Page 8

laconically.
"Gone out of town?" Jim was desperate.
"And you with a houseful of dinner guests! Try again, Jim."
"I have it," Jim said suddenly. "Dallas, ask Anne if she won't play hostess for tonight. Be Mrs. Wilson pro tem. Anne would love it. Aunt Selina never saw Bella. Then, afterward, next year, when I'm hung in the Academy and can stand on my feet"--("Not if you're hung," Dallas interjected.)--I'll break the truth to her."
But Dallas was not enthusiastic.
"Anne wouldn't do at all," he declared. "She'd be talking about the kids before she knew it, and patting me on the head." He said it complacently; Anne flirts, but they are really devoted.
"One of the Mercer girls?" I suggested, but Jimmy raised a horrified hand.
"You don't know Aunt Selina," he protested. "I couldn't offer Leila in the gown she's got on, unless she wore a shawl, and Betty is too fair."
Anne came in just then, and the whole story had to be told again to her. She was ecstatic. She said it was good enough for a play, and that of course she would be Mrs. Jimmy for that length of time.
"You know," she finished, "if it were not for Dal, I would be Mrs. Jimmy for ANY length of time. I have been devoted to you for years, Billiken."
But Dallas refused peremptorily.
"I'm not jealous," he explained, straightening and throwing out his chest, "but--well, you don't look the part Anne. You're--you are growing matronly, not but what you suit ME all right. And then I'd forget and call you 'mammy,' which would require explanation. I think it's up to you, Kit."
"I shall do nothing of the sort!" I snapped. "It's ridiculous!"
"I dare you!" said Dallas.
I refused. I stood like a rock while the storm surged around me and beat over me. I must say for Jim that he was merely pathetic. He said that my happiness was first; that he would not give me an uncomfortable minute for anything on earth; and that Bella had been perfectly right to leave him, because he was a sinking ship, and deserved to be turned out penniless into the world. After which mixed figure, he poured himself something to drink, and his hands were shaking.
Dal and Anne stood on each side of him and patted him on the shoulders and glared across at me. I felt that if I was a rock, Jim's ship had struck on me and was sinking, as he said, because of me. I began to crumble.
"What--what time does she leave?" I asked, wavering.
"Ten: nine; KIT, are you going to do it?"
"No!" I gave a last clutch at my resolution. "People who do that kind of thing always get into trouble. She might miss her train. She's almost certain to miss her train."
"You're temporizing," Dallas said sternly. "We won't let her miss her train; you can be sure of that."
"Jim," Anne broke in suddenly, "hasn't she a picture of Bella? There's not the faintest resemblance between Bella and Kit."
Jim became downcast again. "I sent her a miniature of Bella a couple of years ago," he said despondently. "Did it myself."
But Dal said he remembered the miniature, and it looked more like me than Bella, anyhow. So we were just where we started. And down inside of me I had a premonition that I was going to do just what they wanted me to do, and get into all sorts of trouble, and not be thanked for it after all. Which was entirely correct. And then Leila Mercer came and banged at the door and said that dinner had been announced ages ago and that everybody was famishing. With the hurry and stress, and poor Jim's distracted face, I weakened.
"I feel like a cross between an idiot and a criminal," I said shortly, "and I don't know particularly why every one thinks I should be the victim for the sacrifice. But if you will promise to get her off early to her train, and if you will stand by me and not leave me alone with her, I--I might try it."
"Of course, we'll stand by you!" they said in chorus. "We won't let you stick!" And Dal said, "You're the right sort of girl, Kit. And after it's all over, you'll realize that it's the biggest kind of lark. Think how you are saving the old lady's feeling! When you are an elderly person yourself, Kit, you will appreciate what you are doing tonight."
Yes, they said they would stand by me, and that I was a heroine and the only person there clever enough to act the part, and that they wouldn't let me stick! I am not bitter now, but that is what they promised. Oh, I am not defending myself; I suppose I deserved everything that happened. But they told me that