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Updated: June 5, 2025
As a matter of fact the woman was being dealt a staggering blow. Until the moment she had not herself realized how strongly she had built upon the outcome of this self-constructed romance of hers. In her wildest dreams she had not considered Van Lennop's attentions to Essie Tisdale serious or, indeed, his motives good.
While she believed in herself and her personal charm when she chose to exercise it, Van Lennop's tacit recognition of it brightened her eyes and softened her face into smiling curves of happiness. Van Lennop toyed with her fan and talked idly of impersonal things, but there was a veiled look of curiosity in his eyes, a kind of puzzled wonder each time that they rested upon her face.
In the presence of this new, real grief their friendliness or lack of it seemed a small affair. The only thing which mattered was Ogden Van Lennop's going. The sun, for her, had gone down and with the inexperience of youth she did not believe it ever would rise again. The girl sat motionless, her chin still resting in her palm, until a tremulous voice behind her spoke her name. "Essie."
The bartender was the first to arrive and Van Lennop was not far behind, while others, hastily dressed, followed. The Dago Duke gripped Van Lennop's hand in dreadful terror. "Don't let it come across that seam in the carpet! Don't let it come!" "I'll not; it shan't touch you; don't be afraid, old man." There was something wonderfully soothing in Van Lennop's quiet voice.
The paper dropped from Van Lennop's nerveless hand and he sat staring at it where it lay. He picked it up and read the last paragraph, for his dazed brain had not yet grasped its meaning. But when its entire significance was made clear to him it came with a rush: it was like the instantaneous effect of some powerful drug or stimulant that turned the blood to fire and crazed the brain.
She had, she felt sure, safeguarded herself so far as Essie Tisdale was concerned, yet she was not satisfied, for she seemed no nearer overcoming Van Lennop's prejudice than the day she had aroused it. He distinctly avoided her, and she did not believe in forcing issues.
An unwonted shine came into Van Lennop's calm eyes as he listened. This put a different face upon the affair, this intentional injury to the feelings of his stanch little champion, it somehow made it a more personal matter. The "social line" amused him merely, though, in a way, it held a sociological interest for him, too.
The thought was maddening. She strode to and fro, kicking her torn flounce and trailing skirt out of the way with savage resentment. Van Lennop's letter temporarily punctured her conceit, chagrin and mortification adding to her feeling the anguish of that bad half hour. "That creature" he was calling her while in her ridiculous self-complacency she was drinking to her Supreme Moment.
I thought the tardy invitation was just an oversight, but now I know" her chin quivered suddenly like a hurt child's "that they never meant to ask me." Van Lennop's face had quickly sobered. "You are sure he really said that this Andy P. Symes?" "I think there's no mistake. It was the easiest way to rid themselves of my friendship." She told him then of the reproof Symes had administered.
He had found it quite useless to assure Van Lennop that he need not trouble himself to call as any telegram would be delivered immediately upon its receipt, also he had been long enough in the service to know that young Americans of Van Lennop's type did not ordinarily become so intense over a matter of business.
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