Patty's Success Part 37

Then Mr. Philip Van Reypen deliberately, and noiselessly, lifted another large armchair and, carefully disposing his own goodly proportioned frame within it, proceeded to fall asleep himself--or if not really asleep, he gave an exceedingly good imitation of it.

Patty woke first. As she slowly opened her eyes she saw Philip dimly through the now rapidly gathering dusk.

Quick as a flash she took in the situation, and shut her eyes again, though not until Philip had seen her from beneath his own quivering lids.

After a time she peeped again.

"Why play hide-and-seek?" he whispered.

"What about your promise?" she returned, also under her breath.

"Had to come. Aunty telephoned for me."

"Oh!"

Then Mrs. Van Reypen awoke.

"Who's here?" she cried out. "Oh, Philip, you!"

She heartily kissed her nephew, and then rang for lights and tea.

"Miss Fairfield," she said, not untimidly, but with decision, "you are weary and I'm not surprised at it. Go to your room and rest until dinner time! I will send your tea to you there."

"Yes, Mrs. Van Reypen," said Patty, demurely, and, with a slight impersonal bow to Philip, she left the room.

"Oh, I say! Aunty Van!" exclaimed the young man, as Patty disappeared, "don't send her away."

"Be quiet, Philip," said his aunt. "You know you don't like her, and she needs a rest."

"Don't like her!" echoed Philip. "Does a cat like cream? Aunty Van, what's the matter with you, anyway? Who is she?"

"She's my companion," was the stern response, "my hired companion, and I do not wish you to treat her as an equal."

"Equal! She's superior to anything I've ever seen yet."

"Oh, you rogue! You say that, or its equivalent, about every girl you meet."

"Pooh! Nonsense! But I say, aunty, she'll come down to dinner, won't she?"

"Yes--I suppose so. But mind now, Philip, you're not to talk to her as if she were of your own cla.s.s."

"No'm; I won't."

Rea.s.sured by the knowledge that he should see her again, Philip was most affable and agreeable, and chatted with his aunt in a happy frame of mind.

Patty, exiled to her own room, decided to write to Nan.

She filled several sheets with accounts of her doings at Mrs. Van Reypen's, and gloated over the fact that there were now but four days of her week left.

"I shall win this time," she wrote, "and, though life here is not a bed of roses, yet it is not so very bad, and when the week is over I shall look back at it with lots of funny thoughts. Oh, Nan, prepare a fatted calf for Thursday night, for I shall come home a veritable Prodigal Son!

Of course, I don't mean this literally; we have lovely things to eat here, but it's 'hame, hame, fain wad I be.' I won't write again, I'll probably get no chance, but send Miller for me at four o'clock on Thursday afternoon."

After writing the letter Patty felt less homesick. It seemed, somehow, to bring Thursday nearer, to write about it. She began to dress for dinner, and, in a spirit of mischief, she took pains to make a most fetching toilette.

Her frock was of white mousseline de soie that twinkled into foolish little ruffles all round the hem.

More tiny frills gambolled around the low-cut circular neck and nestled against Patty's soft, round arms.

Her curly hair was parted, and ma.s.sed low at the back of her neck, and behind one ear she tucked a half-blown pink rosebud.

The long, dreamy day had roused in Patty a contrary wilfulness, and she was quite ready for fun if any came her way.

At dinner Mrs. Van Reypen monopolised the conversation. She talked mostly to Philip, but occasionally addressed a remark to Patty. She was exceedingly polite to her, but made her feel that her share of the conversation must be formal and conventional. Then she would chatter to her nephew about matters unknown to Patty, and then perhaps again throw an observation about the weather at her "companion."

Patty accepted all this willingly enough, but Philip didn't.

He couldn't keep his eyes off Patty, who was looking her very prettiest, and whose own eyes, when she raised them, were full of smiles.

But in vain he endeavoured to make her talk to him.

Patty remembered Mrs. Van Reypen's injunctions, and, though her bewitching personality made such effort useless, she tried to be absolutely and uninterestingly silent.

"Aunty Van," said Philip, at last, giving up his attempts to make Patty converse, "let's have a little theatre party to-morrow night. Shall us?

I'll get a box, and if you and Miss Fairfield will go, I'll be delighted."

"I'll go, with pleasure," replied his aunt, "but Miss Fairfield will be obliged to decline. She has been out late too often since she has been here, and she needs rest. So invite the Delafields instead, and that will make a pleasant quartette."

For an instant Patty was furiously angry at this summary disposal of herself, but when she saw Philip's face she almost screamed with laughter.

Crestfallen faintly expressed his appearance. He was crushed, and looked absolutely stunned.

"How he is under his aunt's thumb!" thought Patty, secretly disgusted at his lack of self-a.s.sertion, but she suddenly changed her mind.

"Thank you, Aunty Van," she heard him saying, in a cool, determined voice, "but I prefer to choose my own guests. I do not care to ask the Delafields--unless you especially desire it. I am sorry Miss Fairfield cannot go, but I trust you will honour me with your presence." Philip had scored.

Mrs. Van Reypen well knew if she went alone with her nephew, under such conditions, he would be sulky all the evening. Nor could she insist on having the Delafields asked after the way he had put it.

She then n.o.bly endeavoured to undo the mischief she had wrought.

"No, Philip, I don't care especially about the Delafields. And if Miss Fairfield thinks it will not tire her too much I shall be glad to have her accept your kindness."

His kindness, indeed! Patty felt like saying, "Do you know I am Patricia Fairfield, and it is I who confer an honour when I accept an invitation?"

It wasn't exactly pride, but Patty had been brought up in an atmosphere of somewhat old-fas.h.i.+oned chivalry, and it jarred on her sense of the fitness of things to have Philip's invitation to her referred to as a "kindness."

So she decided to take a stand herself.

"I thank you for your _kindness_, Mr. Van Reypen," she said, with just the slightest emphasis on _kindness_, "but I cannot accept it. I quite agree with Mrs. Van Reypen that I need rest."