The Red Seal - Natalie Sumner Lincoln (the best novels to read .txt) 📗

Colonel McIntyre, with an angry gesture, threw down the newspaper he had been reading.

“Do you mean to say, Helen, that you decline to go to the supper to-night on account of the death of Jimmie ‘Turnbull?” he asked.

“Yes, father.”

McIntyre flushed a dark red; he was not accustomed to scenes with either of his daughters, and here was Helen flouting his authority and Barbara backing her up.

“It is quite time this pretense is dropped,” he remarked stiffly. “You were not engaged to Jimmie - wait,” as she attempted to interrupt him. “You told me the night of the burglary that he was nothing to you.’”

“I was mistaken,” Helen’s voice shook, she was very near to tears. “When I saw Jimmie lying there, dead” - she faltered, and her shoulders drooped forlornly -” the world stopped for me.”

“Hysterical nonsense!” McIntyre was careful to avoid Barbara’s eyes; her indignant snort had been indicative of her feelings. “Keep to your room, Helen, until you regain some common sense. It is as well our friends should not see you in your present frame of mind.”

Helen regarded her father under lowered lids. “Very well,” she said submissively and walked toward the door; on reaching it she paused, and spoke over her shoulder. “Don’t try me too far, father.”

McIntyre stared for a full minute at the doorway through which Helen took her departure.

“Well, what the -” He pulled himself up short in the middle of the ejaculation and turned to Barbara. “Go and get dressed,” he directed. “We must leave here in twenty minutes.”

“I am not going,” she announced.

“Not going!” McIntyre frowned, then laughed abruptly. “Now, don’t tell me you were engaged to Jimmie Turnbull, also.”

“I think you are horrid!” Barbara’s small foot came down with a vigorous stamp.

“Well, perhaps I am,” her father admitted rather wearily. “Don’t keep us waiting, Babs; the car will be here in less than twenty minutes.”

“But, father, I prefer to stay at home.”

And I prefer to have you accompany us,” retorted McIntyre. “Come, Barbara, we cannot be discourteous to Mrs. Brewster; she is our guest, and this supper is for her entertainment.”

“Well, take her.” Barbara was openly rebellious.

“Barbara!” His tone caused her to look at him in wonder; instead of the stern rebuke she expected, his voice was almost wheedling. “I cannot very well take Mrs. Brewster to a caf at this hour without causing gossip.”

“Oh, fiddle-sticks!” exclaimed Barbara. “I don’t have to play chaperon for you two. Every one knows she is visiting us; what’s there improper in your taking her out to supper? Why” - regarding him critically -” she’s young enough to be your daughter!”

“Go to your room!” There was nothing wheedling about McIntyre at that instant; he was thoroughly incensed.

As Barbara sped out happy in having gained her way, she announced, as a parting shot, “If you can be nasty to Helen; father, I can be nasty, too.”

Colonel McIntyre brought his fist down on a smoking table with such force that he scattered its contents over the floor. When he rose from picking up the debris, he found Mrs. Brewster at his elbow.

“Can I help?” she asked.

“No, thanks, everything is back in place.” He pulled forward a chair for her. “If agreeable to you I will telephone Ben Clymer that we will stop for him and take him with us to the Caf St. Marks; or would you prefer some other man?”

“Oh, no.” She threw her evening wrap across the sofa and sat down. “Are the girls ready?”

“They - they are indisposed, and won’t be able to go to-night.”

“What! Both girls?”

“Yes, both” - firmly, not, however, meeting her eyes.

“Hadn’t I better stay with them?” she asked. “Have you telephoned or Dr. Stone?”

“There is no necessity for giving up our little spree,” he declared cheerily. “The girls don’t need a physician. They” - with meaning, “need a mother’s care.” He picked up her coronation scarf from the floor where it had slipped and laid it across her bare shoulders; the action was almost a caress. She made a lovely picture as she sat in the high-backed carved chair in her chic evening gown, and as her soft dark eyes met his ardent look, McIntyre felt the hot blood surge to his temples, and with quickened pulse he went to the telephone stand and gave Central a number.

Back in her chair Mrs. Brewster sat thoughtfully watching him. She had been an unobserved witness of the scene with Barbara, having entered the library in time to hear the girl’s last remarks. It was not the first inkling that she had had of their disapproval of Colonel McIntyre’s attentions to her, but it had hurt.

The widow had become acquainted with the twins when, traveling in Europe just before the outbreak of the World War, and had made the hasty trip back to this country in their company. Colonel McIntyre had planned to bring the twins, then at school in Paris, home himself, but business had kept him in the West and he had cabled to a spinster cousin to chaperon them on the trip across the Atlantic Ocean. Nor had he reached New York in time to see them disembark, and thus had missed meeting Mrs. Brewster, then in her first year of widowhood.

The friendship between the twins and Mrs. Brewster had been kept up through much correspondence, and the widow had finally promised, to come to Washington for their debut, visiting her cousins, Dr. and Mrs. Stone. The meeting had but cemented the friendship between them, and at the twins’ urgent request, seconded with warmth by Colonel McIntyre, she had promised to spend the month of April at the McIntyre home.

The visit was nearly over. Mrs. Brewster sighed faintly. There were two courses open to her, immediate departure, or to continue to ignore the twins’ strangely antagonistic behavior - the first course did not suit Mrs. Brewster’s plans.

Barbara, who had left the library through one of its seven doors, had failed to see Mrs. Brewster by the slightest margin; she was intent only on being with Helen. The affection between the twins was very close; but while their facial resemblance was remarkable, their natures were totally dissimilar. Helen, the elder by twenty minutes, was studious, shy, and too much given to introspection; Barbara, on the contrary, was whimsical and practical by turns, with a great capacity for enjoyment. The twins had made their debut jointly on their eighteenth birthday, and while both were popular, Barbara had received the greater amount of attention.

Barbara tip-toed into the suite of rooms which the girls occupied over the library, expecting to find Helen lying on the lounge; instead, she found her writing busily at her desk. She tossed down her pen as her sister entered, and, taking up a blotter, carefully laid it across the page she had been writing.

“Thank heaven, I don’t have to go to that supper party,” Barbara announced, throwing herself full length on the lounge.

“So father gave it up,” commented Helen. “I am glad.”

“Gave up nothing,” retorted her sister. “He and Margaret Brewster are going.”

“What!” Helen was on her feet. “You let them go out alone together?”

“They can’t be alone if they are together,” answered Barbara practically. “Don’t be silly, Helen.”

Helen did not answer at once; she had grown singularly pale. Walking over to the window she glanced into the street. “The car hasn’t come,” she exclaimed, and consulted her wrist watch. “Hurry, Babs, you have just, time to dress and go with them.”

“B-b-but I said I wouldn’t go,” stuttered Barbara, completely taken by surprise.

“No matter; tell father you have changed your mind.” Helen held out her hand. “Come, to please me,” and there was a world of wistful appeal in her hazel eyes which Barbara was unable to resist.

It was not until Barbara had completed her hasty toilet and a frantic dash downstairs in time to spring into the waiting limousine after Margaret Brewster, that she realized she had put on one of Helen’s evening gowns and not her own.

Benjamin Clymer was standing in the vestibule of the Saratoga, where he made his home, when the McIntyre limousine drew up, and he did not keep them waiting, as Colonel McIntyre had predicted he would on the drive to Clymer’s apartment house.

“The clerk gave me your message when I came in, McIntyre,” he explained as the car drove off. I called up your residence and Grimes said you were on the way here.”

Barbara, tucked away in her corner of the limousine, listened to Mrs. Brewster’s animated chatter with utter lack of interest;