Chapter XVII: Peggy Comes to a Decision

IT was mid-afternoon on a crisp February day when Graham called Peggy on the phone. In his preliminary "Hello" she detected an unwonted note of excitement.

"Hello, Graham. Yes, it's Peggy."

"I want you to take dinner with me to-night."

"Take dinner? Why, I can't possibly, Graham. I've got quite a lot of cramming to do for the mid-year examinations. And I haven't even looked at my lessons for to-morrow."

"Hang your lessons."

Peggy pricked up her ears. "What did you say?" she queried incredulously.

"I said, 'Hang your lessons,' and I'll add, 'Hang your examinations.' I've got to see you and have a long talk."

One of the advantages of habitual faithfulness to duty is that the rare relapse into irresponsibility comes as a delightful holiday. Peggy's face suddenly crinkled into a charming smile. It was a pity Graham could not see it.

"Oh, well," she said demurely, "if it's terribly important--"

"It is."

"Then I suppose I must let you have your way."

"I'll call for you at half past six and we'll dine at the McLaughlin."

"The McLaughlin! You haven't happened to come into a fortune since last evening, have you!"

"Not exactly. It's a celebration."

"What for?"

"That's telling. See you at six-thirty, Peggy darling. Good-by." And Graham rang off in a hurry, as if he feared her powers of persuasion, and suspected that if he gave her half a chance she would have the whole story out of him over the wire.

Peggy went back to her books with a smile which proved her thinking of something very different from history or economics. She was well aware that she would go to the class next day without her usual careful preparation, but having made up her mind to accede to Graham's request, she had no intention of spoiling her pleasure by thinking of slighted tasks. And though she made a valiant effort at concentration in the short time left her for study, her attempt was not particularly successful. The dinner was a celebration, Graham had said. She racked her brain to recall some anniversary that had momentarily escaped her recollection, but without results.

Peggy was dressed by six o'clock, having spent an unprecedentedly long time over her toilet. The McLaughlin, though not the largest hotel in the city, was one of the most exclusive, and the costumes seen in the dining-room were frequently of an elegance compared with which Peggy's little evening frock was almost dowdy. But neither at the McLaughlin nor elsewhere was one likely to see a face more charming than that which looked back at Peggy from her mirror, so that her haunting fear that Graham might be ashamed of her was entirely unfounded.

Mrs. Raymond left the dining table to see the young couple off. "Have a good time, dears," she said, and was pleased but not surprised when Graham followed Peggy's example, and stooping kissed her. She stood at the window looking after them as they went down the street. What a dear boy Graham was! In the far-off, nebulous future when Peggy began to think of being married, she could trust her to Graham without a fear. And then they would live near, where she could see Peggy every day. Mrs. Raymond told herself she would not have anything different.

"Mother," called Mr. Raymond's voice from the dining-room, "your dinner's getting cold."

Meanwhile Peggy, tilting her head on one side like an inquisitive canary, was asking Graham, "What is it we are going to celebrate?"

"Washington's birthday and the Fourth of July, Christmas and New Year's."

"Now, Graham, really I want to know."

"I'll tell you when the time comes. It's not the sort of thing to be sprung on the street."

"Oh, how interesting!" But though Peggy stopped asking questions, her curiosity grew prodigiously. Silent as Graham was as to the occasion of this unwonted festivity, she realized that there was about him an atmosphere of suppressed excitement. Sometimes, when his eyes were on her, he seemed to be looking through her at something big in the distance. Peggy was at the age when thrills and mysteries are always welcome. She climbed aboard the street-car all a-tingle with pleasurable excitement.

The dining-room at the McLaughlin impressed Peggy with its grandeur. The hour was still early for fashionable diners, and less than half of the tables were occupied. But the rows of waiters in black clothes and gleaming shirt fronts, and the scrape of violins in the background, gave Peggy an uneasy sense of being out of place. But Graham, convinced that he was escorting the queen rose of the rose-bud garden of girls, walked to his place as sure of himself as a young prince. And what he saw in Peggy's eyes was not of a sort to lessen his self-confidence.

Peggy soon perceived that her customary little hints regarding economy were to have no weight on this particular occasion. Graham began with oysters and then appealed to Peggy as to her choice in soups. And perceiving that he was determined to be extravagant, for all she could say or do, Peggy gave herself up to enjoying the fruits of his extravagance. This was clearly Graham's night. Peggy decided not to ask again about his secret till he told her of his own accord.

As a matter of fact, Graham seemed in no hurry to take her into his confidence. The meal went on through its leisurely courses, the tables about them gradually filling, till the attentive waiter set their dessert before them--French pastries with small cups of deliciously fragrant coffee. Peggy tasted and sipped and smiled, and looked across the table with such an air of radiant happiness that if Graham had kept the smallest fragment of a heart in his possession, he would have been forced to surrender it on the spot.

He laid down his fork and leaned toward her. "Peggy, I've got my promotion."

"Oh, Graham!"

"They want me to go to South America for two years," Graham continued, speaking with curious breathlessness. "They're not asking me to stay permanently, you understand. But they want a man here who's thoroughly familiar with conditions down there."

Peggy looked at him without replying, all the radiant happiness drained from her face. South America! Her sensations were almost the same as when he went to France, except that now she had no patriotic ardor to sustain her. He was to be away two years, and yet his mood was exultant, and he seemed to expect her congratulations.

Peggy rallied her courage and lifted her eyes with a wan little smile. "When--when do they want you to go?" Her fork clattered against her plate, and she laid it down. She conceived on the instant an intense loathing for French pastry.

"In July."

"Oh!" Peggy winked hard. It would be a shame to spoil that beautiful dinner by crying. And besides, it was a long time before Graham would have to go, from February to July. Then a dreadful thought wrung her heart. If six months was a long time, what of two years?

Graham's face seemed to waver as he leaned toward her across the little round table. His voice sounded far-off and unfamiliar. "What do you say, Peggy? Shall we go?"

"I--I--what are you talking about Graham?"

"You're always saying how you'd love to travel. Don't you see this is your chance."

"Do you--do you mean--"

"Yes, of course I do. Won't you marry me, Peggy, and go along? I can't leave you for two years. I can't. When I came back from the other side I promised myself I'd never be separated from you again by anything less than a world war. If I went by myself, Peggy, it would be going into exile for two years. But with you along, it would be a two-years' honeymoon. Think what it would be to see those new countries together."

"I suppose it would be a good thing for our Spanish," said Peggy, and the inane remark set them both to laughing, which undoubtedly was a good thing. When the paroxysm was over, Peggy wiped her eyes and struggled to be reasonable. "But, Graham, I don't graduate till the twelfth of June."

"And I don't sail till the sixth of July. Loads of time."

"But I always meant to earn my living for a few years after I graduated, before--"

"I wouldn't have stood for that, Peggy, not if I was making enough to take care of you, and I shall be."

Peggy was breathing fast. It was hard to realize that she and Graham were sitting there in the McLaughlin dining-room, discussing the question of whether or not they should be married in July. For except on one memorable occasion, when Graham had been on the point of going across and Peggy had been ready to marry him at a moment's notice, she had felt about her marriage much as her mother did, as if it belonged to the misty, distant, indeterminate future. And now the six months she had assured herself was a long time had dwindled down almost to nothing. July! It was incredibly, overwhelmingly near.

"We'll have to see what father and mother think." She tried to make her voice matter-of-fact, but it had an unnatural tension. Graham on the other side of the little table, nodded agreement.

"Of course we'll see what they think. But we know they can say only one thing. It's such a reasonable solution that only one opinion is possible. Don't you like your dessert, Peggy? Won't you have some ice-cream?"

Peggy protested she liked her desert, and finished it without tasting a morsel. Then they went home and proceeded to bomb the peaceful Raymond household with Graham's astounding proposition. And while Mrs. Raymond began by pronouncing it out of the question, before the evening ended she was driven to admit the reasonableness of Graham's plan. It was true that Peggy's marriage would follow rather closely on the heels of her graduation, but thanks to common-sense hours of sleep, and an abundance of outdoor exercise, she had come through her four years' college course in radiant health. A separation of two years just now would be hard for both, and especially for Graham. Indeed Graham frankly declared that he would not go without Peggy, and yet to refuse such a chance was to prejudice his future success.

When Peggy went to bed that night she knew the whole thing was settled. To be sure, both her father and mother had warned her against a hasty decision, insisting that she take plenty of time to think the matter over. But Peggy knew what the final verdict would be, and she was sure Graham also knew it, by the triumph in his eyes as he kissed her good night.

Changes! She lay in her little white bed and thought of the new life opening before her, strange countries, unfamiliar tongues, alien customs, even the dear, friendly constellations replaced by unknown stars. And the queerest part of all was that she herself would no longer be Peggy Raymond, but a strange young woman, Margaret Wylie by name. Peggy gave a little incredulous laugh. It was astonishing how the world had turned upside down since morning.