Chapter 3

Miss Decker paced restlessly up and down the sea-room waiting for the
mail. Mrs. Pendleton, more composed but equally nervous, lay in a long
chair, with expectation in her eyes and triumph on her lips.

“Will they answer or will they not?” exclaimed Miss Decker. “If the mail
would only come! Will they be crushed?—furious?—or—will they
apologise?”

“I care nothing what they do,” said Mrs. Pendleton, languidly. “All I
wanted was to see them when they received my notes, and later when they
met to compare them. I hold that my revenge is a masterpiece—to turn
the joke on them and to let them see that they could not make a fool of
me at the same time! Oh! how dared they?”

“Well, they’ll never perpetrate another practical joke, my dear. You
have your revenge, Jessica; you have blunted their sense of humour for
life. I doubt if they ever even read the funny page of a newspaper
again. Here comes the postman. There! the bell has rung. Why doesn’t
Hart go? I’ll go myself in a minute.”

Mrs. Pendleton’s nostrils dilated a little, but she did not turn her
head even when the manservant entered and held a silver tray before her.

Four letters lay thereon. She placed them on her lap but did not speak
until the man had left the room. Then she looked at Miss Decker and gave
the letters a little sweep with the tips of her fingers.

“They have answered,” she said.

“Oh, Jessica, for Heaven’s sake don’t be so iron-bound!” cried her
friend. “Read them.”

“You can read them if you choose. I have no interest beyond knowing that
they received mine.”

Miss Decker needed no second invitation. She caught the letters from
Mrs. Pendleton’s lap and tore one of them open. She read a few lines,
then dropped limply on a chair.

“Jessica!” she whispered, with a little agonised gasp, “listen to this.”

Mrs. Pendleton turned her eyes inquiringly, but would not stoop to
curiosity. “Well,” she said, “I am listening.”

“It is from Mr. Trent. And—listen:—

“‘Angel! I think if you had kept me waiting one day longer you
would have met a lunatic wandering on the Newport cliffs. Last
night I attended a primary and made such an egregious idiot of
myself (although I was complimented later upon my speech) that I
shall never understand why I was not hissed. But hereafter I
shall be inspired. And how you will shine in Washington! That is
the place for our talents. After reading your reserved yet
impassioned note, I do not feel that I can talk more rationally
upon politics than while in suspense. What do you think I did? I
made it all up with Severance, Dedham, and Boswell, whom I met
just after receiving it. I could afford to forgive them. They,
by the way, go to Newport to-morrow. Farewell, most brilliant of
women, destined by Heaven to be the wife of a diplomatist—for I
will confide to you that that is my ultimate ambition. Until
to-morrow,

“‘Clarence Trent.’”

“Well! What do you think of that?”

A pink wave had risen to Mrs. Pendleton’s hair, then receded and broken
upon the haughty curve of her mouth.

“Read the others,” she said briefly.

“Oh! how can you be so cool?” and Miss Decker opened another note with
trembling fingers.

“It is from Norton Boswell:—

“‘You once chided me for looking at the world through grey
spectacles, and bade me always hope for the best until the worst
was decided. When you were near to encourage me the sky was
often pink, but even the memory of the last six months has faded
before the agonised suspense of these seven days. Oh! I shall be
an author now, if suffering is the final lesson. But what
incoherent stuff I am writing! Loneliness and despair are alike
forgotten. I can write no more! To-morrow! To-morrow!

“‘Boswell.’”

“Read Severance’s,” said Jessica, quickly.

“I believe you like that man!” exclaimed Miss Decker. “I think he’s a
brute. But you’re in a scrape. This is from the lordly Severance:—

“‘An Englishman once said of you, with a drawl which wound the
words about my memory—“Y-a-a-s; she flirts on ice, so to
speak.” Coldest and most subtle of women, why did you keep me in
suspense for seven long days? Do you think I believe that
fiction of the delayed letter? You forget that we have met
before. But why torment me? Did I not in common decency have to
wait six months before I dared put my fate to the test? How I
counted those days! I had a calendar and a pencil—in short, I
made a fool of myself. Now the chess-board is between us once
more: we start on even ground; we will play a keen and close
game to the end of our natural lives. I love you; but I know
you. I will kiss the rod—until we marry; after that—we shall
play chess. I shall see you to-morrow.

“‘S.’”

“Well, that’s what I call a beast of a man,” said Miss Decker.

“I hate him!” said Jessica, between her teeth.

She looked hard at the ocean. Under its grey sky to-day it was the
colour of her eyes, as cold and as unfathomable. The glittering
Medusa-like ends of her hair seemed to leap upward and writhe at each
other.

“I should think you would hate him,” said Miss Decker; “he is the only
living man who ever got the best of you. But listen to what your devoted
infant has to say. Nice little boy, Teddy:—

“‘Dearest! Sweetest! Do you know that I am almost dancing for
joy at this moment? Indeed, my feet are going faster than my
pen. To think! To think!—you really _do_ love me after all. But
I always said you were not a flirt. I knocked a man down once
and challenged him to a duel because he said you were. He
wouldn’t fight, but I had the satisfaction of letting him know
what I thought of him. And now I can prove it to all the world!
But I can’t write any more. There are three blots on this
now—the pen is jumping and you know I never was much at writing
letters. But I can talk, and to-morrow I will tell you all.

“‘Your own Teddy.

“‘P.S.—Is it not queer—quite a coincidence—Severance, Trent,
and Boswell are going to Newport to-morrow, too. How proud I
shall be! But no, I take that back; I only pity them, poor
devils, from the bottom of my heart; or I would if it wasn’t
filled up with you.

“‘T.’”

“Well, madam, you’re in a scrape, and I don’t envy you. What will you
do?”

Mrs. Pendleton pressed her head against the back of the chair, straining
her head upward as if she wanted the salt breeze to rasp her throat.

“I have been so bored for six months,” she said slowly. “Let them come.
I will see each of them alone, and keep the farce going for a week or
so. It will be amusing—to be engaged to four men at once. You will
command the forces and see that they do not meet. Of course, it cannot
be kept up very long, and when all resources are failing I will let them
meet and make them madly jealous. It will do one of them good, at
least.”

“Well, you have courage,” ejaculated Miss Decker. “You can’t do it. But
yes, you can. If the woman lives who can play jackstraws with
firebrands, that woman is you. And what fun! We are so dull here—both
in mourning. I’ll help you. I’ll carry out your instructions like a
major.”

Mrs. Pendleton rose and walked up and down the room once or twice.
“There is only one thing,” she said, drawing her brows together: “if I
am engaged to them they will want to—h’m—kiss me, you know. It will be
rather awkward. I never was engaged to any one but Mr. Pendleton, and he
used to kiss me on my forehead and say, ‘My dear child.’ I am afraid
they won’t be contented with that.”

“I am afraid they won’t! But you have tact enough. Come, say you will do
it.”

“Yes,” said Jessica, “I will do it. In my boarding-school days I used to
dream of being a tragedy queen; I find myself thrust by circumstances
into comedy. But I have no doubt it will suit my talents better.”