“You can’t conceal a headache, because it’s invisible,” said the mother seriously. “I wish you wouldn’t talk so carelessly, Katherine, and you mustn’t speak like that of your father.”
“Oh, papa and I understand one another,” affirmed Katherine with great confidence, and now for the first time during this conversation the young girl turned her face away from the window, for the door had opened to let in the culprit.
“Now, Amhurst, what is the meaning of this?” cried Sabina before her foot was fairly across the threshold.
All three women looked at the newcomer. Her beautiful face was aglow, probably through the exertion of coming up the stairs, and her eyes shone like those of the Goddess of Freedom as she returned steadfastly the supercilious stare with which the tall Sabina regarded her.
“I was detained,” she said quietly.
“Why did you go away without permission?”
“Because I had business to do which could not be transacted in this room.”
“That doesn’t answer my question. Why did you not ask permission?”
The girl slowly raised her two hands, and showed her shapely wrists close together, and a bit of the forearm not covered by the sleeve of her black dress.
“Because,” she said slowly, “the shackles have fallen from these wrists.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” said Sabina, apparently impressed in spite of herself, but the younger daughter clapped her hands rapturously.
“Splendid, splendid, Dorothy,” she cried. “I don’t know what you mean either, but you look like Maxine Elliott in that play where she—”
“Will you keep quiet!” interrupted the elder sister over her shoulder.
“I mean that I intend to sew here no longer,” proclaimed Dorothy.
“Oh, Miss Amhurst, Miss Amhurst,” bemoaned the matron. “You will heartlessly leave us in this crisis when we are helpless; when there is not a sewing woman to be had in the place for love or money. Every one is working night and day to be ready for the ball on the fourteenth, and you—you whom we have nurtured—”
“I suppose she gets more money,” sneered the elder daughter bitterly.
“Oh, Dorothy,” said Katherine, coming a step forward and clasping her hands, “do you mean to say I must attend the ball in a calico dress after all? But I’m going, nevertheless, if I dance in a morning wrapper.”
“Katherine,” chided her mother, “don’t talk like that.”
“Of course, where more money is in the question, kindness does not count,” snapped the elder daughter.
Dorothy Amhurst smiled when Sabina mentioned the word kindness.
“With me, of course, it’s entirely a question of money,” she admitted.
“Dorothy, I never thought it of you,” said Katherine, with an exaggerated sigh. “I wish it were a fancy dress ball, then I’d borrow my brother Jack’s uniform, and go in that.”
“Katherine, I’m shocked at you,” complained the mother.
“I don’t care: I’d make a stunning little naval cadet. But, Dorothy, you must be starved to death; you’ve never touched your lunch.”
“You seem to have forgotten everything to-day,” said Sabina severely. “Duty and everything else.”
“You are quite right,” murmured Dorothy.
“And did you elope with the captain of the ‘Consternation,’ and were you married secretly, and was it before a justice of the peace? Do tell us all about it.”
“What are you saying?” asked Dorothy, with a momentary alarm coming into her eyes.
“Oh, I was just telling mother and Sab that you had skipped by the light of the noon, with the captain of the ‘Consternation,’ who was a jolly old bachelor last night, but may be a married man to-day if my suspicions are correct. Oh, Dorothy, must I go to the ball in a dress of print?”
The sewing girl bent an affectionate look on the impulsive Katherine.
“Kate, dear,” she said, “you shall wear the grandest ball dress that ever was seen in Bar Harbor.”
“How dare you call my sister Kate, and talk such nonsense?” demanded Sabina.
“I shall always call you Miss Kempt, and now, if I have your permission, I will sit down. I am tired.”
“Yes, and hungry, too,” cried Katherine. “What shall I get you, Dorothy? This is all cold.”
“Thank you, I am not in the least hungry.”
“Wouldn’t you like a cup of tea?”
Dorothy laughed a little wearily.
“Yes, I would,” she said, “and some bread and butter.”
“And cake, too,” suggested Katherine.
“And cake, too, if you please.”
Katherine skipped off downstairs.
“Well, I declare!” ejaculated Sabina with a gasp, drawing herself together, as if the bottom had fallen out of the social fabric.
Mrs. Captain Kempt folded her hands one over the other and put on a look of patient resignation, as one who finds all the old landmarks swept away from before her.
“Is there anything else we can get for you?” asked Sabina icily.
“Yes,” replied Dorothy, with serene confidence, “I should be very much obliged if Captain Kempt would obtain for me a card of invitation to the ball on the ‘Consternation.’ ”
“Really!” gasped Sabina, “and may not my mother supplement my father’s efforts by providing you with a ball dress for the occasion?”
“I could not think of troubling her, Miss Kempt. Some of my customers have flattered me by saying that my taste in dress is artistic, and that my designs, if better known, might almost set a fashion in a small way, so I shall look after my costume myself; but if Mrs. Captain Kempt were kind enough to allow me to attend the ball under her care, I should be very grateful for it.”
“How admirable! And is there nothing that I can do to forward your ambitions, Miss Amhurst?”
“I am going to the ball merely as a looker-on, and perhaps you might smile at me as you pass by with your different partners, so that people would say I was an acquaintance of yours.”
After this there was silence in the sewing room until Katherine, followed by a maid, entered with tea and cakes. Some dress materials that rested on a gypsy table were swept aside by the impulsive Katherine, and the table, with the tray upon it, was placed at the right hand of Dorothy Amhurst. When the servant left the room, Katherine sidled to the long sewing table, sprang up lightly upon it, and sat there swinging a dainty little foot. Sabina had seated herself in the third chair of the room, the frown still adding severity to an otherwise beautiful countenance. It was the younger daughter who spoke.
“Now, Dorothy, tell us all about the elopement.”
“What elopement?”
“I soothed my mother’s fears by