Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/207

Rh "No; Aunt Julia, mercifully, departed, and I went alone to face Mrs. Welles."

chuckled Jordan.

"Don't, Ellery! It isn't funny." He made an obedient but ineffectual effort to control his laughter, which still broke forth occasionally. "In the elevator I decided that when I saw her I'd look surprised and say: 'Oh! Oh, I beg your pardon! This isn't the Mrs. Welles I know!' You know; that sort of thing—and pretend that I had an old schoolmate who was also Mrs. Lancaster Welles, and lived in Borneo or Van Diemen's Land, or somewhere."

"That time you didn't count on Alicia Welles."

"No, I didn't!"

"Look out for women, Louise. They're always x in the problem, and you never know what they'll amount to until it's finished."

"Ellery, she didn't give me a chance to say a word!"

"Of course she didn't! That's Alicia Welles all over!"

"She fairly fell on my neck and said that one of the pleasures to which they had looked forward in New York was meeting Ellery Jordan's bride. Then I knew that they must know you, and I was in for it in earnest!"

"I'll bet you carried it off so she never knew the difference!"

"I'm afraid I did. I wish I hadn't. I wish I'd told her plainly just how and why I went there."

"Why? The rest looks simple enough."

"Ellery, I asked them to dinner—to-night!"

"To-night!" As he lifted himself slowly to his feet, staring at her, consternation wiped the lines of laughter, one by one, from his face. "To-night! Why, Louise, to-night the Bowers—"

"I know it," she broke in desperately, "but I didn't know who the Welleses were. All the time I sat there I racked my brain trying to think, and I haven't the least idea what we said or how it happened. She talked and talked, and I suppose I answered, and somehow I must have mentioned Mr. Bowers's name, for she said Mr. Welles had never met Mr. Bowers, and was very anxious to do so. By this time I was ready to clutch at any expedient, and I remembered that Mr. Bowers admires a pretty woman; I knew you had planned this dinner especially to please him and to make him very good-natured,—and she is charming, Ellery,—and—and I couldn't seem to see any other way out,—I was all mixed up and confused,—so—I asked them to dine with us to-night, to meet Mr. and Mrs. Bowers."

"My Lord!" ejaculated her husband. "You might better have asked the old original serpent! He'd make less trouble. This settles my schemes!" His hands mechanically sought that mysterious comfort that lies ever in the depths of trousers pockets, the while he dejectedly kicked at a piece of crumpled paper on the floor.

Louise regarded him mournfully. "I'm so sorry, dear! It was stupid, but I didn't know, and—I had to do something. Anyway, I thought I had to."

The trembling voice and piteous, tear-wet eyes smote him into loving mendacity. Even if she had unwittingly undermined the walls of a castle he had laboriously builded, and must suffer with him the consequences of its threatened downfall, the poignancies of self-reproach need not be added to her regret. Bending over her, he took her hands in a close clasp, and murmured: "Of course you didn't know, dear! There's no reason why you should," and warmly kissed her. For a moment she clung to him, hiding her face against his coat. Then, comforted but not deceived, she whispered:

"You're such a love! We'll make it come out right somehow," and mopping her eyes, prepared again to face the situation. "Now tell me how bad it is. Just what have I done? I suppose you've told me all about it before, but somehow it didn't seem so real, and I'm afraid I got the names all jumbled up. And I don't see why Mr. Bowers should take such violent exception to Mr. Welles. He never met him."

"No; but Welles is practically George H. Boltwood and Company now, since Boltwood's death."

"And just because Mr. Bowers quarrelled with Mr. Boltwood when they were partners, is he going to hate for evermore