The Net Part 21

"Very!"

"_Don't_ say it that way. Goodness! How I hate her!"

Miss Warren flounced back into the corner of the hammock, and Norvin said with a laugh:

"No wonder you have a train of suitors."

"I've never seen a really beautiful Italian woman--except Vittoria Fabrizi, of course."

"Your friend, the nurse?"

"Yes, and she's not really Italian, she's just like anybody else. She was here to see me again this afternoon, by the way; it's her day off at the hospital, you know. I want you to meet her. You'll fall desperately in love."

"Really, I'm not interested in trained nurses, and I wouldn't want you to hate her as you hate the Countess."

"Oh, I couldn't hate Vittoria, she's such a dear. She saved my life, you know."

"Nonsense! You only had a sprained ankle."

"Yes, but it was a perfectly odious sprain. n.o.body knows how I suffered. And to think it was all Bernie's fault!"

"How so? You fell off a horse."

"I did not," indignantly declared Miss Warren. "I was thrown, hurled, flung, violently projected, and then I was frightfully trampled by a snorting steed."

Norvin laughed heartily at this, for he knew the rickety old family horse very well by sight, and the picture she conjured up was amusing.

"How do you manage to blame it on Bernie?" he inquired.

"Well, he forbade me to ride horseback, so of course I had to do it."

"Oh, I see."

"I fixed up a perfectly ravis.h.i.+ng habit. I couldn't ask Bernie to buy me one, since he refused to let me ride, so I made a skirt out of our grand-piano cover--it was miles long, and a darling shade of green.

When it came to a hat I was stumped until I thought of Bernie's silk one. No mother ever loved a child as he loved that hat, you know. I twisted his evening scarf around it, and the effect was really stunning--it floated beautifully. Babylon and I formed a picture, I can tell you. I call the horse Babylon because he's such an old ruin.

But I don't believe any one ever rode him before; he didn't seem to know what it was all about. He was very bony, too, and he stuck out in places. I suppose we would have gotten along all right if I hadn't tried to make him prance. He wouldn't do it, so I jabbed him."

"Jabbed him?"

Myra Nell nodded vigorously. "With my hat-pin. I didn't mean to hurt him, but--oh my! He isn't nearly so old as we think. I suppose the surprise did it. Anyhow, he became a raging demon in a second, and when they picked me up I had a sprained ankle and the piano cover was a sight."

"I suppose Babylon ran away?"

"No, he was standing there, with one foot right through Bernie's high hat. That was the terrible part of it all--I had to pretend I was nearly killed, just to take Bernie's mind off the hat. I stayed in bed for the longest time--I was afraid to get up--and he got Vittoria Fabrizi to wait on me. So that's how I met her. You can't linger along with your life in a person's hands for weeks at a time without getting attached to her. I was sorry for Babylon, so I had Chloe put a poultice on his back where I jabbed him. Now I'd like to know if that isn't Bernie's fault. He should have allowed me to ride and then I wouldn't have wanted to. Poor boy! he was the one to suffer after all.

He'd planned to take a trip somewhere, but of course he couldn't do that and pay for a trained nurse, too."

Myra Nell's allusion to her brother's financial condition reminded Blake of the subject which had been uppermost in his mind all evening, and he decided to broach it now. Subsequent to his last talk with Dreux he had thought a good deal about that proffered loan and had come to regard Bernie's refusal as unwarranted. To be Queen of the Carnival was an honor given to but few young women, and one that would probably never come to Miss Warren again, so even at the risk of offending her half-brother he had decided to lay the matter before Myra Nell herself. She ought at least to have in later years the consoling thought that she had once refused the royal scepter. He hoped, however, that her persuasion added to his own would bring Dreux to a change of heart.

"If you'll promise to make no scene, refrain from hysterics, and all that," he began, warningly, "I'll tell you some good news."

"How silly! I'm an iceberg! I never get excited!" she declared.

"Well then, how would you like to be Queen of the next Mardi Gras?"

Myra Nell gasped faintly in the darkness, and sat bolt-upright.

"You--you're joking."

"That's no answer."

"I--I--Do you mean it? Oh!" She was out of the hammock now and poised tremblingly before him, like a bird. "Honestly? You're not fooling?

Norvin, you dear duck!" She clapped her hands together gleefully and began to dance up and down. "I-I'm going to scream."

"Remember your promise."

"Oh, but Queen! Queen! Why I'm dreaming, I _must_ scream."

"I gather from these rapt incoherences that you'd like it."

"_Like_ it! You silly! Like it? Haven't I lived for it? Haven't I dreamed about it ever since T was a baby? Wouldn't any girl give her eyes to be queen?" She seemed upon the verge of kissing him, perhaps upon the nose, but changed her mind and went dancing around his chair like some moon-mad sprite. He seized her, barely in time to prevent her from crying the news aloud to Bernie, explaining hastily that she must breathe no word to any one for the time being and must first win her brother's consent. It was very difficult to impress her with the fact that the Carnival was still a long way off and that Bernie was yet to be reckoned with.

"As if there could be any question of my accepting," she chattered.

"Dear, dear! Why shouldn't I? And it was lovely of you to arrange it for me, too. Oh, I know you did, so you needn't deny it. I hope you're to be Rex. Wouldn't that be splendid--but of course you wouldn't tell me."

"I can tell you this much, that I am not to be King. Now I have already spoken to Bernie--"

"The wretch! He never breathed a word of it."

"He's afraid he can't afford it."

"Oh, la, la! He'll have to. I'll die if he refuses--just die. You know I will."

"We'll bring him around, between us. You talk to him after I go, and the next time I see him I'll clinch matters. You'll make the most gorgeous of queens, Myra Nell."

"You think so?" She blushed prettily in the gloom. "I'll have to be very dignified; the train is as long as a hall carpet and I'll have to walk this way." She ill.u.s.trated the royal step, bowing to him with a regal inclination of her dark head, and then broke out into rippling life and laughter so infectious that he felt he was a boy once more.

The girl's unaffected spontaneity was her most adorable trait. She was like a dancing ray of suns.h.i.+ne, and underneath her blithesome carelessness was a fine, clean, tender nature. Blake watched her with his eyes alight, for all men loved Myra Nell Warren and it was conceded among those who wors.h.i.+ped at her shrine that he who finally received her love in return for his would be favored far above his kind. She was closer to him to-night than ever before; she seemed to reach out and take him into her warm confidence, while he felt her appeal more strongly than at any time in their acquaintance. Of course she did not let him do much talking, she never did that, and now her head was full of dreams, of delirious antic.i.p.ations, of splendid visions.

At last, when she had thanked him in as many ways as she could think of for his kindness and the time drew near for him to leave, she fell serious in a most abrupt manner, and then to his great surprise referred once again to his affair with the Mafia.

"It seems to me that my joy would be supreme to-night if I knew you would drop that Italian matter," she said. "The consequences may be terrible and--I--don't want you to get into trouble."

"I'll be careful," he told her, but as she stood with her hand in his she looked up at him with eyes which were no longer sparkling with fun, but deep and dark with shadows, saying, gently:

"Is there nothing which would induce you to change your mind?"

"That's not a fair question."