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"I should say not!" came the ready answer, accompanied by a keen look, first at Jack and then at the other, as a dazzling idea suddenly flashed into Beverly's mind. "Business before pleasure, every time with me; and it's only right you should devote every atom of your mind and body to beating that skunk to the post." "We've settled on that policy all right," said Jack.
"Beverly, Beverly, it breaks my heart " I lost the remainder of the sentence, but Beverly's words were clear and direct and full of a frank surprise. "Eloise, do you really care?" I turned away quickly that I might not hear any more. The rest of that night I sat wide awake and staring at the misty valley of the Kaw, where silvery ripples flashed up here and there against the shadowy sand-bars.
Later on, coming back from Europe, he had gone back there to find Lucas installed in the house, his cigars on the table, his photographs on the piano, his books scattered about. And Lucas himself, smiling, handsome and triumphant on the hearth rug, dressed for dinner except for a brocaded dressing-gown, putting his hand familiarly on Beverly's shoulder, and calling her "old girl."
Hurriedly she threw off the robe de chambre of silk and lace which she had been wearing, and put on a charming dress, suitable for travelling. The long outstanding account for this confection had been paid with Virginia Beverly's money; but that was a detail.
Dreamily the watchers in the cool balcony looked down upon the somber park and its occasional guardsman. Neither was in the mood to talk. As they rose at last to go to their rooms, something whizzed through the air and dropped with a slight thud in the center of the balcony. The two young women started back in alarm. A faint light from Beverly's window filtered across the stone floor.
"Sometime within a month. Papa is weatherwise, and thinks the winter will set in early, so is anxious to hasten our departure." A few evenings later, there was a small family party at Mrs. Beverly's, to which Mr. and Mrs. Sherwood and the twin girls were invited. Cora and Elsie Gurney were also going with Lancy and Hugh.
Having got the treasurer's report on the night's business and sent it to Beverly's dressing-room, Gregory wandered into his small, low-ceiled office under the balcony staircase, and closing the door sat down. It was the interval after the second act, and above the hum of voices outside the sound of the orchestra penetrated faintly. He was entirely serene.
"Ethel, I saw, was excited. Therefore I made no more point of her theories concerning the appearance and family circle of old Mrs. Beverly. But in justice to myself I felt obliged to remind her, first, that I was investing, not speculating, and second, that it was Mr. Beverly's advice I was following, and not that of his mother.
From sheer force of habit she had switched off the lights in the gym as she hurried from it, a key happening to be at the side of the door through which she led her brood. That the tail-end of the crowd might have stumbled over something was a trifling consideration. Beverly's quick wits which had grasped many details of Miss Woodhull's idiosyncrasies, had taken in this one.
"The feeling one has about your mother," she said, "almost makes a Catholic of one. You can see how natural it is for these poor fellows to worship the Madonna, and how much better it must make them." "It is humanizing," Geoffry admitted. "There's no doubt of it"; and thereupon it struck him, for the first time, that there was a look of his mother in Pauline Beverly's face.
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