第20章

"Why don't you wear your hair that new way, Laura," she remarked, "farther down on your neck? I see every one doing it now."The house was very still.Outside the double windows they could hear the faint murmuring click of the frozen snow.A radiator in the hallway clanked and strangled for a moment, then fell quiet again.

"What a pretty room this is," said Laura."I think I'll have to do our guest room something like this--a sort of white and gold effect.My hair? Oh, I don't know.Wearing it low that way makes it catch so on the hooks of your collar, and, besides, I was afraid it would make my head look so flat."There was a silence.Laura braided a long strand, with quick, regular motions of both hands, and letting it fall over her shoulder, shook it into place with a twist of her head.She stepped out of her skirt, and Mrs.Cressler handed her her dressing-gown, and brought out a pair of quilted slippers of red satin from the wardrobe.

In the grate, the fire that had been lighted just before they had come upstairs was crackling sharply.

Laura drew up an armchair and sat down in front of it, her chin in her hand.Mrs.Cressler stretched herself upon the bed, an arm behind her head.

"Well, Laura," she began at length, "I have some real news for you.My dear, I believe you've made a conquest.""I!" murmured Laura, looking around.She feigned a surprise, though she guessed at once that Mrs.Cressler had Corthell in mind.

"That Mr.Jadwin--the one you met at the opera."Genuinely taken aback, Laura sat upright and stared wide-eyed.

"Mr.Jadwin!" she exclaimed."Why, we didn't have five minutes' talk.Why, I hardly know the man.I only met him last night."But Mrs.Cressler shook her head, closing her eyes and putting her lips together.

"That don't make any difference, Laura.Trust me to tell when a man is taken with a girl.My dear, you can have him as easy as _that._" She snapped her fingers.

"Oh, I'm sure you're mistaken, Mrs.Cressler.""Not in the least.I've known Curtis Jadwin now for fifteen years--nobody better.He's as old a family friend as Charlie and I have.I know him like a book.

And I tell you the man is in love with you.""Well, I hope he didn't tell you as much," cried Laura, promising herself to be royally angry if such was the case.But Mrs.Cressler hastened to reassure her.

"Oh my, no.But all the way home last night--he came home with us, you know--he kept referring to you, and just so soon as the conversation got on some other subject he would lose interest.He wanted to know all about you--oh, you know how a man will talk," she exclaimed."And he said you had more sense and more intelligence than any girl he had ever known.""Oh, well," answered Laura deprecatingly, as if to say that that did not count for much with her.

"And that you were simply beautiful.He said that he never remembered to have seen a more beautiful woman."Laura turned her head away, a hand shielding her cheek.

She did not answer immediately, then at length:

"Has he--this Mr.Jadwin--has he ever been married before?""No, no.He's a bachelor, and rich! He could buy and sell us.And don't think, Laura dear, that I'm jumping at conclusions.I hope I'm woman of the world enough to know that a man who's taken with a pretty face and smart talk isn't going to rush right into matrimony because of that.It wasn't so much what Curtis Jadwin said--though, dear me _suz,_ he talked enough about you--as what he didn't say.I could tell.He was thinking hard.He was _hit,_ Laura.I know he was.

And Charlie said he spoke about you again this morning at breakfast.Charlie makes me tired sometimes," she added irrelevantly.

"Charlie?" repeated Laura.

"Well, of course I spoke to him about Jadwin, and how taken he seemed with you, and the man roared at me.""_He_ didn't believe it, then."

"Yes he did--when I could get him to talk seriously about it, and when I made him remember how Mr.Jadwin had spoken in the carriage coming home."Laura curled her leg under her and sat nursing her foot and looking into the fire.For a long time neither spoke.A little clock of brass and black marble began to chime, very prettily, the half hour of nine.Mrs.

Cressler observed:

"That Sheldon Corthell seems to be a very agreeable kind of a young man, doesn't he?""Yes," replied Laura thoughtfully, "he is agreeable.""And a talented fellow, too," continued Mrs.Cressler.

"But somehow it never impressed me that there was very much _to_ him.""Oh," murmured Laura indifferently, "I don't know.""I suppose," Mrs.Cressler went on, in a tone of resignation, "I suppose he thinks the world and all of _you?_"Laura raised a shoulder without answering.

"Charlie can't abide him," said Mrs.Cressler."Funny, isn't it what prejudices men have? Charlie always speaks of him as though he were a higher order of glazier.Curtis Jadwin seems to like him....What do you think of him, Laura--of Mr.Jadwin?""I don't know," she answered, looking vaguely into the fire."I thought he was a _strong_ man--mentally Imean, and that he would be kindly and--and--generous.

Somehow," she said, musingly, "I didn't think he would be the sort of man that women would take to, at first--but then I don't know.I saw very little of him, as Isay.He didn't impress me as being a _woman's_ man.""All the better," said the other."Who would want to marry a woman's man? I wouldn't.Sheldon Corthell is that.I tell you one thing, Laura, and when you are as old as I am, you'll know it's true: the kind of a man that _men_ like--not women--is the kind of a man that makes the best husband."Laura nodded her head.

"Yes," she answered, listlessly, "I suppose that's true.""You said Jadwin struck you as being a kindly man, a generous man.He's just that, and that charitable! You know he has a Sunday-school over on the West Side, a Sunday-school for mission children, and I do believe he's more interested in that than in his business.He wants to make it the biggest Sunday-school in Chicago.