Part 5 (2/2)

”Mother, with your love for old lace, you certainly would like the openwork effect of my skin. But--the patient will recover.”

”I trust this experience has been a lesson to you!” said Mrs. De Peyster with returned severity.

”Oh, it has--a big lesson!” Jack heartily agreed.

”Then I trust you will do nothing of the kind again.”

”I trust I won't have to!”

There was rather an odd quality in Jack's tone.

”Won't have to? What do you mean?”

”You've questioned me a lot, mother. I'd like to put a few leading questions to you. And--u'm--alone. Olivetta,” he remarked pleasantly, ”do you know that Sherlock Holmes found it an instructive and valuable occupation to count the stair-steps in a house? Suppose you run out for five minutes and count 'em. I'll bet you a box of--”

Olivetta had risen, somewhat indignantly.

”I never eat candy!”

”A box of hairpins,” continued Jack, clumsily picking up one from the floor, ”that there aren't more than seventy-five.”

”Oh, if you want me out of the way, all right!” said Olivetta, sticking the pin into place.

”Here, is that your purse?” asked Jack, fis.h.i.+ng an open purse from beneath the chair Olivetta had just vacated.

”Yes, I'm always dropping it. I lost two--”

”I must say, Olivetta,” put in Mrs. De Peyster reprovingly, ”that you really must not be so careless!”

Jack was looking at a card that had fallen from the purse.

”h.e.l.lo! And a ticket to the exhibition of paintings of--”

”Give it to me!” And Olivetta, with suddenly crimson face, s.n.a.t.c.hed purse and card from Jack's hands. ”I'll wait up in your bedroom, Caroline, and look at your new gowns.” And with a rapidity that approached instantaneity she disappeared.

”Jack,” his mother demanded suspiciously, ”what was that card?”

”Just an old admission ticket to varnis.h.i.+ng day at the spring exhibit of the American Society of Painters,” said Jack easily. And without giving Mrs. De Peyster an instant in which to pursue the matter further, he awkwardly pushed her favorite chair toward the fire to a place beside his own. ”Come sit down, mother. There's a lot of things I want to tell you.”

Mrs. De Peyster lowered herself into the chair. ”Yes?”

Jack's eyes had meditatively followed Olivetta. ”Do you know, mother, that Olivetta would really be an awfully good sort if she only had the right chance?”

”The right chance?”

”Yes. Think of her living on and on in that deadly proper little hotel--chuck full of primped and crimped and proud poor relations who don't dare draw a single full-sized breath without first considering whether such a daring act might not disturb the social standing of somebody over on Fifth Avenue or down here on Was.h.i.+ngton Square--Oh, I say, mother, five more years of that life and Olivetta will be choked--dessicated--salted away--a regular forever-and-ever-amen old maid. But if--” He hesitated.

”Yes--if?”

<script>