Chapter XVI: Deliverance

PRISCILLA had seen Horace only once since the football game, and then for a short and unsatisfactory interview. Immediately after, Horace had left town for one of those trips which so cleverly combined business and pleasure, a combination of which Horace seemed to have the secret. A long letter which might have been an excerpt from the Journal of Another Disappointed Man gave her no address to which to write him, and the best she could do was to promise herself to be very, very kind to Horace on his return. She owed him that for the wrong she had done him.

The days went by without any further word from Horace, and Friday rounded out a full week since she had last seen him. Priscilla and Peggy walked home from class together with that sense of leisure Friday afternoon brings to each student, no matter how much must be done before Monday morning. They paused at Peggy's door and Peggy urged hospitably, "Come on in."

"I think I'd better go home and see if mother's there, and if she wants anything. We haven't seen our maid for three days."

"Well, we've _seen_ Sally, if that's any comfort," laughed Peggy. "But she's been about as much good as if she'd been at the North Pole. A woman she knows was knocked down by an automobile and taken to the hospital, and all Sally has been good for since is to dramatize the affair. First she's the automobile speeding recklessly on, and then she's the poor victim. You never saw anything so realistic as the way she drops on the kitchen floor."

Priscilla laughed, but disapprovingly. "I don't see how you folks put up with her, Peggy. She'd drive me crazy."

"Well, there's no denying she's a trial at times, but Sally has her good points. She's devoted to us all, for one thing, and that isn't very common these days. And besides," added Peggy simply, "if we didn't keep her I don't know how the poor thing would get along."

The two girls had been together all day but they lingered, loath to separate. "Listen, Peggy," Priscilla exclaimed. "Come home with me. Like enough mother will have an errand for me to do and then we can go together. Don't you love outdoors when it's still and cold like this?"

"Yes, love it. I'll go and see if we need anything in the way of groceries, and I'll join you in about a minute."

Peggy hurried up the walk and Priscilla went on her way. The evening paper lay folded on the porch of her home and she picked it up and tucked it under her arm before she slipped her key into the latch. She found the kitchen empty and ran upstairs, calling her mother. But only the echoes answered, and Priscilla realized that except for herself the house was empty.

Priscilla seated herself to wait for Peggy, picking up the paper she had thrown on the library table. Her eye ran mechanically over the columns. She turned the sheets, her thoughts still busy with the day's happenings, and with vague plans for the morrow. Then unexpectedly a familiar face flashed out at her from the page, set above head-lines that seemed fairly to shriek their news.

YOUNG HITCHCOCK SURPRISES FRIENDS
SOCIETY MAN MARRIES IN NEW YORK

Priscilla, sitting motionless, read the news over several times. Then her eyes began moving down the column. Even when she saw Horace's name written out in full, her sense of unreality persisted. The reporter had treated the matter humorously, following the precedent which makes love and marriage the most popular theme for jests. That the lady in question had become Mrs. Hitchcock just three days after meeting her future husband furnished a partial excuse for the levity.

"Mr. Hitchcock denies that there is anything hasty in his romantic marriage," wrote the reporter. "When asked if he considered a three days' acquaintance a sufficient prelude to matrimony, he smilingly replied that he preferred three thousand years. In explanation of his enigmatic remark, Mr. Hitchcock gave his views on reincarnation, while in the background Mrs. Hitchcock blushed assent. Both are convinced that, to quote Mr. Hitchcock, 'they were soul mates when the pyramids were in building, lovers in Babylon--'"

Priscilla suddenly crumpled the paper in her hand. The familiar phrases were like a dash of cold water, rousing her from her daze. "I'm free," she cried, "I'm free! I'm free!" and broke into violent weeping.

Peggy rang several times without attracting attention. When at length she put her finger to the button and held it there, Priscilla woke to the realization that there was some one at the door. She crept downstairs, unconsciously holding fast to the paper that had announced her release, and admitted a justly incensed Peggy.

"I'm afraid you need some of those artificial ear-drums, Priscilla--Why, what's happened?" Peggy's attempted irony changed to affectionate concern, as she saw Priscilla with her tear-streaked cheeks and eyes inflamed and swollen. She threw her arms around her friend, her imagination running the gamut of possible calamities. "Oh, what is the matter?" she pleaded.

It seemed to Priscilla that a verbal explanation was beyond her. Dumbly she held out the crumpled sheet. Peggy caught sight of Horace's smug smile, snatched the paper from Priscilla's hand, and read the incredible story at a glance. The blood rushed to her brain, dying even her ears crimson. Rage shook her. For the instant, the gentle Peggy was a silent fury.

Priscilla roused herself to the need of explanation. "Peggy!"

Peggy whirled upon her. "My dear, it is the most abominable thing I ever heard of, but you couldn't have cared for him, Priscilla. Oh, tell me you didn't."

"We--well, we were engaged."

"Engaged," choked Peggy. She took a backward step, looked at Priscilla's disfigured face, and dug her nails deep into her palms. "Oh, I wish I were a man," she breathed in a voice hardly recognizable.

Priscilla uttered a choked laugh. Combined with the fact that the tears were still running down her face, this did not tend to allay Peggy's apprehensions. But as the laugh seemed to unlock Priscilla's tongue, her distressed friend was not long kept in suspense.

"I suppose I looked as if I were heart-broken," exclaimed Priscilla, laughing and crying. "Yes, we were really engaged, Peggy, but you can't imagine what a nightmare it has been."

"A nightmare," gasped Peggy. "Your engagement a nightmare!" She put her hands to her head as if the unexpected information acquired in the last few minutes had crowded it to the bursting point.

"Wait, Peggy! I've had a dreadful time, but it's been my own fault. I blame myself for everything that has happened. If it hadn't been for my silly vanity--"

"Vanity--" interrupted Peggy, and sniffed her scorn.

"Oh, you can sneer, Peggy Raymond, but I've been a silly little fool. In the first place, I made myself miserable because nobody wanted me."

"Priscilla," Peggy interrupted again, "I believe you ought to go to bed. You're talking as if you were delirious."

"I know perfectly well what I'm saying, Peggy. You were engaged to Graham, and Nelson was in love with Ruth and Bob Carey was getting very attentive to Amy, and I was the only one left out and I resented it."

"Do you mean," cried Peggy incredulously, "that you don't know that you're so handsome that people are always turning to look after you when you pass?"

Priscilla laughed. "I won't choke you off, Peggy. After that news--" she nodded significantly toward the paper. "I fancy I can stand a little flattery and not be injured. But anyway I was sour and sore when Horace began to call. I knew exactly what Horace was, Peggy, but I shut my eyes to it. I wouldn't criticize him even in my thoughts. I wouldn't let you laugh at him--"

"Don't I know it!" Peggy drew a long breath. "That was one of the things that made me anxious."

"Well, when he told me--that he cared for me, I just snatched at him, Peggy. I was perfectly delighted that somebody thought I was attractive. And I was such a silly little fool that I actually gloated over being the second girl out of us four to get engaged. Peggy, I'm terribly ashamed to tell you all this, but now's the time to finish up the subject and be done with it."

"Priscilla darling, I can understand everything except your feeling that way about yourself."

"Of course I wasn't happy," Priscilla went on. "I don't know whether Horace was or not. He always talked in a dreadfully pessimistic fashion, but I rather think--"

"Just a pose," interpolated Peggy witheringly. "Even when he was a little boy, Horace was always playing a part."

"Once or twice I tried to tell him I thought we had made a mistake. When I thought of going on and on through the years it didn't seem as if I could bear it. And then he talked so dreadfully, Peggy, and I was afraid he'd kill himself."

"No such luck," snorted Priscilla's audience. It was hard to believe that it was really Peggy making such a speech and looking so fierce and angry. Priscilla interrupted her story by a little hysterical laugh.

"The last time was only two weeks ago at the foot-ball game. He was so disagreeable that I tried again to get out of it, and then he took it so to heart that I gave up all hope of ever being free. When I read that account today, and it came over me all at once that I needn't ever see Horace Hitchcock again, it seemed as if I'd die of joy. I believe I should have, too, if I hadn't begun to cry."

Peggy was still scornful. "The idea of your sacrificing yourself for such a fellow as Horace."

"Only because I was to blame, Peggy. As long as my silly vanity had got me into such a scrape, I thought nothing was too bad for me."

"Didn't it ever occur to you that two wrongs didn't make a right? If you were wrong in getting engaged to Horace when you didn't love him, marrying him without love would be a million times wickeder."

Priscilla took the reproof meekly. "Perhaps so. Anyway, I have learned my lesson. The wrong man is so much worse than no man at all that now I'm perfectly resigned to being an old maid."

Peggy sniffed derisively. "You talk about your silly vanity. You certainly were silly enough, but when it comes to vanity, why, Priscilla Combs, you're the most painfully modest girl I know. The timid violet is a monster of arrogance compared to you. I adore Ruth and Amy, as everybody knows, but when it comes to looks, they're simply not in it alongside you. You're handsome, Priscilla, just as Horace's dreadful old aunt said, and you're talented and you're charming, and lots of men would fall in love with you in a minute if they thought they had the ghost of a chance."

Priscilla clapped her hands over her ears and blushed till Peggy's eloquence lost itself in laughter. "I'm not going to be punished by having to marry Horace," she said, when at length she judged it safe to lower her defenses. "But I shan't get off scott-free. Just think, Peggy, how many people in this city will be sorry for me, because I've been jilted by Horace Hitchcock."