Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley. C. N. Williamson
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sure they haven't. Are you going?"
"Yes, I've accepted."
"I know Diana would love it. I'll tell her about you—and about to-day, for she can't be cross with me if it ends in an invitation. And you'd be her first flying man."
Even as I spoke I had a misgiving. It came like a cramp in the heart. Di's nickname seemed to whisper itself in my ear: "Diana the Huntress—Diana the Huntress!" I didn't want her to shoot her arrow through this man's heart, because—well—just because. But they would have to meet if he were not to be lost to me, since he refused to be a partner in fibs. The idea seemed exactly the chance I had been looking for; and if the invitation came through me, provided I were included by the ambassadress, I didn't see how Di and Father could leave me out.
"All right, you shall have the card, I can promise that!" my captain said cheerily.
"But," I haggled, "will the ambassadress ask a—a little girl like me, who isn't out yet?"
"Of course she will. I'll see to that. Why shouldn't a little girl go for once? Here is one partner for her."
To dance in the white dress, with him! The thing must be too good to be true. Yet it really did seem as if it might come true.
He let me select the place for luncheon, and I chose the Zoo. He said I couldn't have chosen better. It wasn't a very grand meal, but it was the happiest I'd ever had. Captain March told me things about America, and aeroplanes, though very little about himself—except that he was stationed at a beautiful place in Arizona, called Fort Alvarado, close to the springs of the same name, where girls came and had "the time of their lives." Afterward we wandered about and made love to the Zoo animals, and at last saw them fed. When the lions and tigers had finished their glorious roaring, which seemed to bring the desert and the jungle near, it was almost five o'clock, so we had tea at the crescent-shaped tea house, in front of the Mappin Terraces. I lingered over my strawberries as long as I decently could, because, though I searched hard for it, there seemed to be no bored look on Captain March's face. When I did reluctantly say, "I suppose I'd better go home?" he actually had the air of being sorry.
"It's been the nicest day I ever lived in," I told him.
"I've enjoyed every minute of it, too," said he. "What a pity we can't polish it off with a dinner and the theatre. Look here, if you'd like it, Miss Peggy, I guess I can get that old lady I told you of, who's sailing to-morrow and will take the lace scarf, to go with us as chaperon. What do you say?"
What could I say? Being a child, it didn't matter showing the wildest delight. There are some advantages in being a child.
He took me home to our lodgings in Chapel Street (which cheaply gave us the address of Mayfair) and then I had to break it to him that I wasn't a Miss.
"Good gracious!" he exclaimed, when I began with those words. "Children don't marry in your country at thirteen, do they?"
I explained that, because my father happened to be an earl, his daughters had a courtesy title; and when he looked a little shocked, as if he were wondering whether he had been indiscreet, I nodded toward the house, as our taxicab stopped before the insignificant green door. "You see by where we live how unimportant we are!" I excused myself in such a pleading voice that he laughed. Then he flashed away to make arrangements for the evening—our evening!
The landlady had a telephone, and presently I got the message which Captain March had told me to expect. Mrs. Jewitt had consented to dine and go to the theatre. Would I like the Savoy, and to see "Milestones" afterward? And was I sure this business wouldn't get me into trouble to-morrow?
If it had sent me into penal servitude for life, I shouldn't have hesitated; but I replied that my sister would forgive me for the sake of the American Embassy ball. I knew Di could be counted on, in the exceptional circumstances, not to tell Father; but I didn't mention that detail to Captain March. I was afraid he might think the corporal's stripe had been ill-bestowed, but one must draw the straight line of truth somewhere!
CHAPTER III
Next morning when Di came back, I told her what was necessary to tell, and not a bit more. I explained how I had met Captain Eagleston March, and how we had spent the day and the heavenly evening. But first, I let her open the invitation which had just come by hand from the American Embassy (she opens all Father's letters, except those that have a repulsively private look), and when she began, "I wonder how on earth——," I was able to work my story in neatly, as an explanation.
Di listened to the end, without interrupting me once except by opening her eyes very wide, and now and then raising her eyebrows, or giving vent to expressive sighs. I saw that she was thinking hard as I went on, and I knew what she was thinking: about the need of forgiving me because of the new interest in life my naughtiness had brought her.
When I had finished up the tale with our dinner at the Savoy, and seeing "Milestones," and then on top of all, having supper with Mrs. Jewitt and Captain March at a terribly respectable but fascinating night club of which he had been made a member, Diana didn't scold. She said that Captain March being an officer and a flying man made all the difference, but she hoped I would not have put myself into such a position with any other sort of man, whether he mistook me for a child or not. Even as it was, she wouldn't dare tell Father the history of my day: but, as they had made several American acquaintances lately, she could easily account for the Embassy invitation.
"We'll go, of course, won't we?" I catechized her, knowing that her word with Father was pretty well law.
"Yes, we'll go," she answered. "I'll write an acceptance and send it by hand."
I was so enchanted at this that I dashed up to my room and began shortening the new dress. I had mentioned it vaguely to Di, but it was the one part of my story in which she took no interest. I saw how the keenness died out of her beautiful sea-blue eyes, and how her soul retired comfortably behind them, to think of something else, just as you see people walk away from windows through which they've been looking out, leaving them emptily blank. As she didn't care what little Peggy wore, little Peggy decided to give her a surprise at the last moment. Nothing much was said about the Embassy ball by Father or Di before me, on that day or the next, so I, too, kept my own counsel. I was afraid if I gabbled as I longed to do, Father might take it into his head that the child had better stop at home. All I heard was a little talk about the time to start, and whether a taxi should be ordered or a coupé. I thought there would be rather a squash in a coupé with Father, Diana, and me folded together in a sort of living sandwich; but I was so small, I could perhaps manage not to slide off the little flap seat with its back to the horses.
It was a coupé they finally decided on, and it was ordered for a quarter to ten. We had a short and early dinner, and as I did Diana's hair, it seemed to me that I had never seen her look prettier. I wondered whether Captain March would admire her very much, and I hoped for his own sake—I almost believed it was for his own sake!—that he wouldn't fall in love. As I thought this, I looked with a new kind of criticism at Di, to judge whether he were likely to be one of her victims.
Heaps of men had fallen in love with Di since I began to be old enough to notice such things. They had never been the right sort of men, from her point of view, for none of the lot had had a penny to bless himself with, or even a title worth the taking. But all of them had been worth flirting with; and after they had been dropped with more or less of a dull thud, I'm afraid some of them had suffered. I didn't wish Captain March to suffer, yet I couldn't help thinking that if I were a man I might be as silly as the rest and go down before Di.
She was then—and she is now—the most lovable looking thing that can be imagined. She doesn't appear to be cool and calculating, but warm-hearted and gentle and soft, far more so than most of the girls one meets, especially in London, where I think they have the air of being rather hard: ready to sacrifice everything and everybody for the sake of what they want to get or do.
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