The Story Book Girls Part 54

Mr. Leighton shook his head over her having allowed the invitation to go.

"You can't tell what net she may become entangled in," he said, "and Symington cleared out in a very sudden manner, you know." He could not get that out of his mind.

Mrs. Leighton harked back to the old formula. "Elma is only a child,"

she said, "with too much of a superb imagination. She will have a lot of fancies before she is done."

Elma saw her letter posted, with only Mrs. Leighton and Miss Grace in the secret. She felt completely relieved and happy. Nothing had pleased her so much for a long time.

"Why, Elma, your cheeks are getting pink at last," said Adelaide Maud.

She had come in to spend the afternoon with Elma while the others went to the dressmaker for the all-important gowns. Adelaide Maud had said she would come if Elma were to be quite alone. And Elma meant to be quite alone until Cuthbert came down by an early train. Then, after Adelaide Maud was announced, she rather hoped that Cuthbert might appear.

"Are you sure they are pink," she asked Adelaide Maud, "because I used to be so anxious that I might look pale."

"You must have thought yourself very good looking lately then," said Adelaide Maud. "Elma," she asked suddenly, "why don't you girls sometimes call me Helen? I think you might by this time."

"I would rather call you Adelaide Maud," said Elma.

"But I can't be a Story Book for ever."

"I shouldn't want to call you Helen when you looked like Miss Dudgeon.

Mrs. Dudgeon wouldn't like it, would she?"

Ridgetown traditions still hampered their friends.h.i.+p it seemed.

Adelaide Maud's head fell low.

"Do you know, Elma, in five minutes, if I just had one chance, in five minutes I could get my mother to say that it didn't matter whether you called me Helen or not. But I never get the chance."

"I did one lovely and glorious thing yesterday," said Elma. "Couldn't I do another to-day?"

"I don't know what you did yesterday, but you can't do anything for me to-day," said Adelaide Maud stiffly.

Cuthbert came strolling in. Adelaide Maud looked seriously annoyed.

"You told me you would be quite alone," she said to Elma.

"Oh, you don't mind about Cuthbert, do you?" asked Elma anxiously.

"Besides, Cuthbert didn't know you were coming."

"I did," said Cuthbert shortly.

Adelaide Maud had risen a little, and at this she sat down in a very straight manner, with her head slightly raised. She and Elma were on a couch near a tea-table. Cuthbert took an easy chair opposite. Then Adelaide Maud began to laugh. She laughed with a ringing bright laugh that was very amusing to Elma, but Cuthbert remained quite unmoved.

Adelaide Maud looked at him.

"Oh, please laugh a little," she said humbly.

Cuthbert did not take his eyes away from her. He simply looked and said nothing.

"How are the invitations going on?" he asked Elma as though apparently proving that Adelaide Maud did not exist.

Elma clasped her hands.

"Beautifully. I've been allowed to ask all my 'particulars.'"

"Am I to be invited?" asked Adelaide Maud simply.

"Mrs. and Miss Dudgeon," said Elma in a hollow voice. "Do you think Mrs. Dudgeon will come?" she asked in a melancholy manner.

"Not if Mr. Leighton looks like that," said Adelaide Maud. She turned in a pettish manner away from him and gazed at Elma.

Elma burst out laughing.

"Oh, Cuthbert, I do think you are horrid to Adelaide Maud."

Adelaide Maud sat up again looking perfectly delighted.

"Now there," she said, "I have been waiting for years for some one to say that about Mr. Leighton. Thank you so much, dear. It's so perfectly true. For years I have been amiable and for years he has been--a----"

"A brute," said Elma placidly.

"Yes," said Adelaide Maud. "And I've got to go on pretending to be a girl of spirit with a mamma who won't understand the situation, and--and--I get no encouragement at all. It's a horrid world," said Adelaide Maud.

Cuthbert rose from the easy chair, with a look in his eyes which Elma had never seen.

"All I can say is," he pretended to be speaking jocularly, "will the lady who has just spoken undertake to repeat these words, in private--in----"

"No, she won't," said Adelaide Maud in a whisper.

Elma sat shaking in every limb. The one thought that pa.s.sed through her mind was that if she didn't clear out, Cuthbert might kiss Adelaide Maud, and that would be awful. She crawled out of the room somehow or other. What the others were thinking of her she did not know. She wanted to reach something outside the door, and sank on a chair there.

Oh, the selfishness of lovers! Adelaide Maud and Cuthbert were "making it up" while she sat shaking with her face in her hands in the long corridor.

Mrs. Leighton found her there some little time afterwards.

"s.h.!.+ mummy. Speak in a whisper, please."

"Well, I never. Who is ill now, I should like to know?"

"Adelaide Maud and Cuthbert."

She pulled her mother's head down to her and whispered in her ear.

"I didn't know it was coming, they were so cross with one another. And then I knew it was. And I just slipped out. And I'm shaking so that I'm afraid to get off this chair. I should never be able to get engaged myself--it's so--en--enervating."

"Well, I never," said Mrs. Leighton; "well, I never. Turned you out of your own room, my pet. Just like those Dudgeons."

"Oh, mummy, it's lovely. I don't mind. It's just being ill that made me shake. Aren't you glad it's Adelaide Maud?"