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Besides, Charity found it hard to assume that a woman who held her good name cheap would hold her good self less cheap, since reputation is usually cherished longer than character. In any case, Charity was smothering. Even Mrs. Noxon's vast drawing-room was too small to hold her and Jim and Kedzie and Strathdene. America was too strait to accommodate that jangling quartet.
Noxon had defended Charity against gossip once before, but to defend her against appearances was too much to ask. "Well-behaved people," she told Charity, "do not have appearances." She was so cold that Charity froze also, and set her maid to packing. Mrs. Noxon's frigidity was a terrifying example of what she was to expect. She returned to New York on the first train. Jim was on it, too.
On her neck was one place, for she saw a woman with a dog-collar of that price, and it made Kedzie feel absolutely nude in contrast. She met old Mrs. Noxon with her infamously costly stomacher on, and Kedzie cried that night because she could not have one for her own midriff. Jim growled, "When you get a stomach as big as Mrs. Noxon's you can put a lamp-post on it."
Noxon's pool. At length Kedzie revealed the horrible fact that her real name was Kedzie Thropp. He laughed aloud. He was so tickled by her babyish remorse that he made her say it again. He told her he loved it twice as well as the stilted, stagy "Anita Adair." "That's one of the reasons I wanted you to marry me," he said, "so that I could change your horrible name."
Noxon's pool." "The one I asked you to look out for?" "Yes." "Well, isn't that fine! She was very pretty. I hope you'll be ever so happy." "Thanks, Charity thank you. Mighty nice of you! Of course, you know er Well, here she is." He beckoned to Kedzie, who came forward. "Mrs. Cheever, my wife. But you've met, haven't you?"
The dryads came suddenly through Mrs. Noxon's imported shrubs, puncturing them with rhythmic attitudes. These lost something of their poetry from being held so long that equilibria were lost foolishly. Finally, the water-sprites came forth from cleverly managed concealment in a bower and stood mid-thigh in the water about the fountain.
As the boys will wish to know something of the progress of business here, tell them that the cause of Freer and Van Vleeck has been this day put off by the defendants, on payment of costs, on an affidavit of the want of papers. In Noxon's cause I have a verdict for thirty-four pounds. The evidence clearly entitled Mr.
Gilfoyle had a touch of writer's cramp, and Kedzie had no desire to see the result of a conflict between two such victims of unpreparedness. She forgot both rivals in the excitement of a sudden incursion of Miss Silsby, who came crying: "Oh, girls, girls, what Do you sup-Pose has Happened? I have been en-Gaged to give my dances at Noxon's old Mrs. Noxon's, in Newport."
She packed her things and went to the train, lugging her own baggage. When she reached the station she was footsore, heartsore, soulsore. Her only comfort was that the Silsby dancers had been placed early enough on Mrs. Noxon's program for her to have failed in time to get home the same day. She hated Newport now. It had not been good to her. New York was home once more.
So Jim was permitted to hope that he could find Kedzie, throw himself on her mercy and implore her to believe in his innocence. It was a sickly hope, and his heart filled with gall and with hatred of Kedzie and all she had brought on him. He reached Newport with a terrific speed, and left Charity at Mrs. Noxon's to make her own explanations. Mrs.
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