"If only Flora would get well, and let me leave this beastly hole," had been the burden of his complaint.

"I thought you liked it."

"It is well enough for a time."

"What about the new little girl?"

He was plainly embarra.s.sed, but bluffed it out. "I wish you wouldn't ask questions."

"I wish you wouldn't be--rude--Georgie-Porgie."

"I hate that name, Madge. Any man has a right to be rude when a woman calls him 'Georgie-Porgie.'"

"So that's it? Well, now run along. And please don't come again until you are nice--and smiling."

"Oh, look here, Madge."

"Run along----"

"But there isn't any place to run."

Laughter lurked in her eyes. "Oh, Georgie-Porgie--for once in your life can't you run away?"

"Do you think you are funny?"

"Perhaps not. Smile a little, Georgie."

"How can anybody smile, with everybody sick?"

"Oh, no, we're not. We are better. I am so glad that Flora is improving."

"Oscar thinks it is because that little old man prayed for her. Fancy Oscar----"

Madge meditated. "Yet it might be, you know, George. There are things in that old man's pet.i.tion that transcend all our philosophy."

"Oh, you're as bad as Oscar," said George. He rose and stood frowning on the threshold. "Well, good-bye, Madge."

"Good-bye, Georgie, and smile when you come again."

She had guessed then that something had gone wrong in the game with the new little girl. She had a consuming curiosity to know the details.

But she could never force things with Georgie. Some day, perhaps, he would tell her.

And now here was news indeed! She waited until young Beaufort and his wife had driven away, and until Mrs. Flippin had time for that quiet hour by her bedside.

"Mary looked lovely," said Madge.

"Didn't she?" Mrs. Flippin rocked and talked. "You would never have known that dress was made for anybody but for Mary. Becky gave Mary another dress out of a lot she had down from New York. It is yellow organdie, made by hand and with little embroidered scallops."

Madge knew the house which made a specialty of those organdie gowns with embroidered scallops, and she knew the price.

"But how does--Becky manage to have such lovely things?"

"Oh, she's rich," Mrs. Flippin was rocking comfortably. "You would never know it, and n.o.body thinks of it much. But she's got money.

From her grandmother. And there was something in the will about having her live out of the world as long as she could. That's why they sent her to a convent and kept her down here as much as possible. She ain't ever seemed to care for clothes. She could always have had anything she wanted, but she ain't cared. She told Mary that she had a sudden notion to have some pretty things, and she sent for them, and it was lucky for Mary that she did. She couldn't have gone to this ball, for there wasn't any time to get anything made. Mr. Flippin and I are going to buy her some nice things when she goes to Richmond. But they won't be like the things that Becky gets, of course."

Madge, listening to further details of the Meredith fortunes, wondered how much of this Georgie knew. "Becky's mother died when she was five, and her father two years later," Mrs. Flippin was saying. "She might have been spoiled to death if she had been brought up as some children are. But she has spent her winters at the convent with Sister Loretto, and she's never worn much of anything but the uniform of the school.

You wouldn't think that she had any money to see her, would you, Miss MacVeigh?"

"No, you wouldn't," said Madge, truthfully.

It was after nine o'clock--a warm night--with no sound but the ticking of the clock and the insistent hum of locusts.

"Mrs. Flippin," said Madge, "I wish you'd call up Hamilton Hill and ask for Mr. Dalton, and tell him that Miss MacVeigh would like to have him come and see her if he has nothing else on hand."

Mrs. Flippin looked her astonishment. "To-night?"

"Oh, I am not going to receive him this way," Madge rea.s.sured her. "If he can come, I'll get nurse to dress me and make me comfy in the sitting-room."

Having ascertained that Dalton would be over at once, the nurse was called, and Madge was made ready. It was a rather high-handed proceeding, and both Mrs. Flippin and the nurse stood aghast.

The nurse protested. "You really ought not, Miss MacVeigh."

"I love to do things that I ought not to do."

"But you'll tire yourself."

"If you were my Mary," said Mrs. Flippin, severely, "I wouldn't let you have your way----"

"I love to have my own way, Mrs. Flippin. And--I am not your Mary"--then fearing that she had hurt the kind heart, she caught Mrs.

Flippin's hand in her own and kissed it,--"but I wish I were. You're such a lovely mother."

Mrs. Flippin smiled at her. "I'm as near like your mother as a hen is mother to a bluebird."

Madge, robed in the mauve gown, refused to have her hair touched. "I like it in braids," and so when George came there she sat in the sitting-room, all gold and mauve--a charming picture for his sulky eyes.

"Oh," she said, as he came in, in a gray sack suit, with a gray cap in his hand, "why, you aren't even dressed for dinner!"

"Why should I be?" he demanded. "Kemp has left me."

She had expected something different. "Kemp?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"He didn't give any reason. Just said he was going--and went. He said he had intended to go before, and had only stayed until Mrs. Waterman was better. Offered to stay on a little longer if it would embarra.s.s me any to have him leave. I told him that if he wanted to go, he could get out now. And he is packing his bags."

"But what will you do without him?"