Chapter XVII A Scandal Verified
“I’m not denying that women are foolish: God Almighty made ’em to match the men.”
—George Eliot.
“Gracious, man! do give those unfortunate eyes of yours a rest. I should think they would ache, the way you roll them. Besides, it’s such a waste of time to make eyes at me.”
“I don’t think so.”
“I suppose it keeps you in practice,” Miss Bent remarked, sardonically.
“I beg your pardon?”
“I said,” repeated Miss Bent, slowly and deliberately, “that I supposed that—it—kept—you—in practice—to—make—eyes—at—me!”
“It does. But that’s not the only reason I do it.”
Miss Bent eyed him with extreme disfavour.
“How silly you are,” she said, snubbingly.
“Now that’s unworthy of you,” her companion returned. “Its rudeness is worthy of you, but not its stupidity. Ordinarily your remarks are witty, even when they are rude, but this”—
“Has only truth to recommend it.”
“I don’t care for verbal gymnastics.”
“Your likes and dislikes are not”—
“A matter of interest to you? no, I suppose not. And you see that relieves me from considering yours. Take the present case, for instance. I feel like making eyes, as you rudely call it, at you: therefore I make them”—
“And make them very badly!” interpolated the well-bred Miss Bent.
“You are no judge, being by nature incapable of doing anything in the eye-making way at all.”
“Ah!” said Miss Bent, reflectively, “there is no saying how well I might make eyes if I saw anything worth making eyes at. But, I say, don’t be cross.”
“I’m not!”
“No, of course not: but don’t, anyway, for I want to tell you something and some way I can’t talk to cross people”—
“But I tell you I’m not”—
“Dear, dear! there you are again with a face flaming with rage, interrupting me and contradicting me.”
Mr. Ogden opened his mouth; then shut it with an air of determination, as though he really might have replied, had he chosen.
“And now you’re glaring at me as if you were beside yourself with rage. Why don’t you try to be reasonable?”
The unhappy Mr. Ogden stared wildly but ventured no remark.
“I suppose I may go on now,” Miss Bent said in a rather pointed manner when a moment of silence had elapsed. “What I began to tell you half an hour ago—only you would keep interrupting me—was that Mrs. Hadwell is giving all sorts of things for those cousins, or whatever they are, of hers from the States. And she has asked me to a theatre party and a tobogganing party, so I think I ought to give something for them. What would you suggest?”
Mr. Ogden looked perplexed.
“Surely you’re not sulking all this time!” said Miss Bent, rather sadly.
“I don’t know what you mean. I never sulk.”
“Then, perhaps, instead of sulking, you will answer my question,” said Miss Bent with asperity.
Mr. Ogden laughed.
“I should suggest a drive,” he hazarded. “A drive by moonlight and a supper afterwards.”
“Perhaps that would be the best plan,” said Miss Bent, thoughtfully. “Who would you ask?”
“Me, for one.”
“Oh, yes, I suppose so, but—O dear! has my snowshoe come off, again?”
“Let me fix it.”
“What do you suppose is the reason?”
“The reason? You didn’t let me do it at the start.”
“I suppose you think you can attend to my snowshoes better than I can myself.”
“I do, indeed.”
“Well, don’t start to argue about that, please don’t. I haven’t seen you for such a long time and there are such a lot of things that I want to say, but some way, whenever I am going to start, something happens to prevent me.”
“Your snowshoe, for instance?”
“Yes, or you. You begin to argue about something. Now don’t be cross! I suppose I really shouldn’t have said that, but”—
“Oh, it’s quite true that I occasionally make a remark.”
“Occasionally!”
“Very occasionally, yes. When people are with you they don’t talk much as a rule. Queer, isn’t it?”
“I suppose,” said his companion after thinking deeply for a moment, “that what you mean is that they don’t get much chance.”
“That was my meaning, exactly.”
“I can’t help talking a little sometimes, you know,” said Miss Bent, icily——
“You can’t, indeed!”
“No. I come by it honestly. My own father was a man!”
Silence reigned, unbroken and long. The snowshoers trudged on in silence, the lady chuckling delightedly to herself.
“I had two things to tell you,” she remarked, presently, perceiving that her companion was unmoved by her silence and getting very tired of preserving it.
“Yes?”
“Yes. The second one is gossip, so I suppose I shouldn’t”—
“Oh, but you will.”
“Not,” said Miss Bent, impressively, “not unless you promise solemnly never to tell a living soul about it—especially not Agatha!”
“Why is Agatha to be debarred from hearing what no living soul may know?”
“Because,” said his companion, seriously, “Agatha is not to be trusted. She can’t keep a secret. Oh, you needn’t laugh. The person who told me this said the same thing to me. ‘Don’t tell anyone about this,’ she said, most earnestly, ‘and whoever you tell, don’t tell Agatha.’”
“What lack of confidence you two secretive people do show in Agatha. Why is it?”
“In the first place because she’s a cat.”
“Doesn’t seem conclusive. I’ve known cats who talked less than some ladies.”
“—And in the second because she’s her cousin.”
“Whose? The cat’s?”
“No. Lynn Thayer’s.”
“My golf-balls! Where are we at?”
“Why, I’m sure I’ve made myself plain enough,” said Miss Bent, looking surprised.
“On the contrary you’ve made yourself awfully pretty in your sporting togs but you have not made yourself explicit.”
“You silly thing! Don’t you see what I mean? It’s Lynn Thayer that the gossip’s about.”
“Oh, Miss Thayer,” said Ogden. “Then I hardly think it’s true.”
“Oh, it must be. This person saw her. It seemed so queer she could hardly believe her eyes.”
“What did?”
“Why, Lynn’s being there alone at that time of night. Not that it was a proper place for a lady at any time”——
“What place wasn’t?”
“Dear me, Neil, you are stupid, sometimes. Why, St. Eustache St.”——
“Whew! St. Eustache St.!”
“Yes, and at eleven o’clock at night.”
“Nonsense.”
“It isn’t nonsense. Mabel saw her—there! I let out the name, but you won’t tell anyone, will you?—at all events you won’t mention that it was Mabel”——
“Mabel be—wait a moment. Your friend saw Miss Thayer—at eleven o’clock at night on St. Eustache St.”—
“Yes. Coming out of that rackety studio building on the south side, where unspeakable beings congregate.”
“What? Oh, look here, Kitty, you mustn’t say that. You don’t know what you’re saying. Your friend, whoever she is, made a mistake—a big mistake. It was not Lynn Thayer she saw at all—it could not possibly have been—and she does a very wrong and wicked thing in spreading such stories. Now what I want you to do is”——
“Neil, one would think I was fifteen. Do you suppose Mabel would say such a thing if it wasn’t true? She didn’t think at first that it could be Lynn, though she saw her distinctly; and so she followed her.”
“Oh! Well, Kitty, all I can say is that if your friend’s a woman, I’m glad I’m a man. By the way, was this paragon alone?”
“Certainly not. She and her husband had been to the French theatre: and, as it was a fine night they decided to walk home. Then they began talking about how these awful old streets used to be fashionable, and he said that he would show her an interesting old house in St. Eustache St. So they went there and he pointed it out to her and told her how it used to belong to the Duke of —— and how now it had degenerated into the haunt of all sorts of people. Just as he was saying that only confirmed drunkards and opium eaters and things ever went there the door opened—and, to their infinite astonishment, Lynn Thayer came out.”
“Your friend’s a”——
“She isn’t. She’s a nice woman and so is her husband—at least I mean he’s—well, anyway, they followed her for a block or two and she called a closed sleigh and, just for fun, they got into another and drove behind her. She went up to Pine Avenue and so they began to think that they must be mistaken when—what do you think?—she got out, paid the cabman and walked back to her aunt’s house! There was no possible mistake about it.”
Neil trudged along in silence for a few moments.
“Kitty,” he said at last, “there seem to be only two interpretations that can be put on that story. The first is that Lynn Thayer, a girl who has always been considered one of the nicest in Montreal, has done an unpardonable thing; the second, that your friends are liars. I prefer to think the latter—hello! do you want to run over us? Where’s your light?”
“Beg pardon, sir. I’ve just been driving a lady who asked me to put it out while I was up here. I’ll light it right away.”
“It’s not right, a sleigh going at that rate without light: what on earth could the woman have meant by telling him to put it out. She must be—well, Kitty, what on earth is it?”
“Hush! Look!”
He looked. A woman clad in a long dark cloak and wearing a heavy veil passed them with averted head and hasty steps. Her walk and figure were unmistakable. She shrank into the shadow of the leafless maples and descended rapidly citywards.