He came down the center like a silver-shod Mercury. In the silence, for the orchestra did not accompany his entrance, the faint musical ringing of his skates ran softly with him. My first unwilling recognition of his good looks and athletic grace was followed by an equally reluctant admission of his skill. Reluctant, because my anger and bewilderment were hot against the man. My little cousin, my pathetic, unworldly Phillida—and this cabaret entertainer! At the mere joining of their names my senses revolted. What could they have in common? How had she seen him? Having seen him, it was easy to understand how he had fascinated her inexperience. Only, what was his object?
He had seen us, where we sat. I saw his dark eyes fix upon her and flash some message. Her plain little face irradiated, her fingers unconsciously twisting and wringing her napkin, she leaned forward to watch and answer glance for glance.
I would rather not put into words my thoughts. Yet, I watched his performance. In spite of myself, he held me with his swift, certain skill, his vitality and youth.
He was gone, with the swooping suddenness of his appearance. The jazz music clattered out. Phillida turned back to me and began to speak with a hushed rapture that baffled and infuriated me.
"You understand, Cousin Roger? Now that you have seen him, you do understand? No! Let me talk, please. Let me tell you, if I can. It began last summer, at the school where I was cramming for college work. Oh, how tired I was of study! How tired of it I am, and always shall be! I think that side of me never will get rested. Then, in the woods, I met him. He was stopping at a hotel not far away. I—we——"
I waited for her to go on. Instead, she abruptly spread wide her hands in a gesture of helplessness.
"After all, I cannot tell you. Not even you, Cousin! He—he liked me. He treated me just as a really, truly girl who would have partners at dances and wear fluffy frocks and curl her hair. He thought I was pretty!"
The naïve wonder and triumph of her cry, the challenge in her brown eyes, to my belief, were moving things. I registered some ugly mental comments on the rearing of Phil and the kind of humility that is not good for the soul.
"Why not?" I demanded. "Of course!"
She shook her head.
"No. Thank you, but—no! Not pretty, except to him. Only to him, because he loves me."
I do not know what impatience I exclaimed. She checked me, leaning across the table to grasp my hand in both hers.
"Hush! Oh, hush, dear Cousin Roger! For it is quite too late. We were married six months ago; last autumn."
When I could, I asked:
"Married legally, beyond mistake? Were you not under eighteen years old?"
"I was eighteen years and a half. There is no mistake at all. We walked over to the city hall in the nearest town, and took out our license, and were married."
"Very well. I will take you home to your father and mother, now; then see this man, myself. If there is indeed no flaw in the marriage and it cannot be annulled, a divorce must be arranged. Any money I have or expect to have would be a small price to set you free from the miserable business. But the first thing is to get you home. We will start now."
She detained my hand when I would have signalled our waiter. Her eyes, shining and solemn as a small child's, met mine.
"No, Cousin, please! I am not going home any more. At least, not alone. I asked you to bring me here where he is, because I am going to stay with my husband."
"Never," I stated firmly.
"Yes."
"Not if I have to send for your father and take you home by force."
"You cannot. I am of age."
"Phillida, I am responsible for you to your parents tonight. Let me take you home, explain things to them, and then decide your course."
"But that is what I most do not want to do!" she naïvely exclaimed.
"You will not?"
"I'm sorry. No."
"Then I must see the man."
"Not—hurt——?"
I recalled the man we had just seen on the skating floor, with a qualm of quite unreasonable bitterness. That anxiety of Phillida's had a flavor of irony for me.
"Hardly," I returned. "There are fortunately other means of persuasion than physical force."
"Oh! But you cannot persuade him to give me up."
I was silent. At which, being a woman, she grew troubled.
"How could you?" she urged.
"You have had no opportunity of judging what influence money has on some people, Phil."
She laughed out in relief.
"Is that all? Try, Cousin."
"You trust him so much?"
"In everything, forever!"
"Then if I succeed in buying him off, promise me that you will come home with me."
"If he takes money to leave me?"
"Yes."
"I should die. But I will promise if you want me to, because I know it never will happen. Just as I might promise to do anything, when I knew that I never would have to carry it out."
"Very well," I accepted the best I could get. "I will go find him."
"There is no need. He is coming here to our table as soon as he is free."
"I will not have you seen with him in this place."
"But I am going to stay here with him," she said.
Her eyes, the meek eyes of Phillida, defied me. My faint authority was a sham. What could be done, I recognized, must be done through the man.
We sat in silence, after that. Presently, her gaze fixed aslant on me as if to dare my interference, she drew up a thin gold chain that hung about her neck and ended beneath her blouse. From it she unfastened a wedding ring and gravely put the thing on her third finger, the school-girl romanticism of the gesture blended with an air of little-girl naughtiness. She looked more fit for a nursery than for this business.
I could tell from the change in her expression when the man was approaching. I rose, meaning to meet him and turn him aside from our table. But Phillida halted me with one deftly planted question.
"You would not leave me alone in this place, Cousin?"
Certainly I would not leave her alone at a table here; not even alone in appearance while I had my interview with the man close at hand. Yet it seemed impossible to speak before her. She calmly answered my perplexity.
"You must talk to him here, of course. I—want to listen to you both. Indeed, I shall not interfere at all, or be angry or hurt! I know how good you mean to be, dear; only, you do not understand."
I sat down again, perforce. When the man's shadow presently fell across our table, it did not soothe me to see Phil thrust her hand in his, her small face enraptured, her fingers locking about his with a caress plain as a kiss. She said proudly, if tremulously:
"Cousin Roger, this is my husband. Mr. Locke, Ethan dear."
He said nothing. His hesitating movement to offer his hand I chose to ignore. I admit that my spirit rose against him to the point of loathing as he stood there, tall, correct in attire—the focus of admiring glances from other diners—in every way the antithesis of my poor Phillida.
"Sit down," I bade curtly, when he did not speak. "Miss Knox insists that we have our interview here. I should have preferred otherwise, but her presence must not prevent what has to be said."
"It won't prevent anything I want to say, Mr. Locke," he answered.
He spoke with a drawl. Not the drawl