Page:Angna Enters - Among the Daughters.djvu/446

 scratch and Alice says Palm Beach may amuse me. But, what is more important, it is warm. I gather I'm not the only one who hasn't heard from her. I've had several plaintive letters from Nino. Rather shabby of her, isn't it, not to write him?"

"She could never do a shabby thing. Sometimes her reasons may seem odd to others but then they aren't Lucy. Frankly, I'm worried about her. I'll try and reach her now."

"Tell her to come down if you do," he called after her.

She had been in and gone out, leaving no return message to Vida's note.

"I wouldn't worry, she is undoubtedly in the arms of a new Adonis. Someone obviously she doesn't want us to know about."

"That's not nice, and I don't believe it. After all, there is no reason for her to sit and wait for me to call. She couldn't reach me at the 'Y'!"

"But she might at least have come to see me once before I went to Newport. She hasn't been down since that day you both were here last May."

"Perhaps she decided you were not her friend because of your siding with Horta."

"I thought she was being childishly melodramatic," he said pettishly.

"I don't agree. It was a vicious thing Horta did. Lucy knew that from then on, in one way or another, word would spread that she was a call-girl."

"Oh well, what of it? Nino didn't care, and asked her to marry him, didn't he? I was vastly entertained by the news about Horta. Of course, women have no sense of humor. To illustrate. I thought it would be amusing to play a little joke on Horta. Let's see if you appreciate it." He leaned forward and licked his small dry lips. "I asked Mary Doyle, who as you know is gossip personified, my sister Alice, who though the soul of propriety is not dull-witted, and Horta to tea. I told them I was planning an enormous party in Horta's honor. She, as you can imagine, was quite overcome. Especially in addition to meeting Alice, as she had been dying to wangle an invitation from her to Newport. I told them I planned to transform this room into the reception parlor of a Wild West Maison Close and that I depended on Horta to give it the authentic touch, to help with the decorations, and principally to resume, for this one evening, her former role as Madam. I really got quite carried away 434