Affinities, and Other StoriesRinehart, Mary Roberts
General
Affinities, and Other Stories
Rinehart, Mary Roberts
Fiction; Short stories
Mrs. Harcourt-Standish plays up the feminine. She is slim and blond, and
wears slinky clothes and a bang--only they call it a fringe--across her
forehead. She has been in prison five times and is supposed to have
influence with the Cabinet. She showed me a lot of photographs of
herself in the dock and in jail, put up in a frame that was made to
represent a barred window. It was Violet Harcourt-Standish, you
remember, who broke up the meeting of the Woman's Liberty League, the
rival Suffragette association, by engaging the suite below their rooms,
burning chemicals in the grates, and sending in a fire alarm when the
smoke poured out of the windows.
I had been in England visiting Daphne for four months while Mother went
to Italy, and I had had a very queer time. One was apt to go shopping
with Daphne and end up on a carriage block or the box of a hansom cab,
passing out handbills about votes for women. And once, when we dressed
in our best gowns and went to a reception for the Cabinet, or something
of the kind, Daphne stood on the stairs and began to make a speech. It
turned out that she hadn't been invited at all and they put her out
immediately--politely, but firmly. I slid away into the crowd, quite
pale with the shock and disgrace, and stood in a corner, waiting to be
arrested and searched for the spoons. But for a long time no one noticed
me. Then a sunburned gentleman who was passing in the crowd saw me,
hesitated and came back.
"I beg pardon," he said, and my heart turned entirely over, "but I think
you came with Miss Wyndham? If you will allow me----"
"I am afraid you have made a mistake," I replied frigidly, with my lips
stiff with fright. He bowed at that and passed on, but not before he had
looked straight into my eyes and read the lie there.
After ages I left the window where I had taken shelter and got somehow
to the dressing-room. Of course, Daphne had taken the carriage, so I
told a sad-eyed maid that I was ill and would not wait for my brougham,
and to call a cab. I was perfectly numb with rage when I got to Daphne's
apartment, and burst in like a whirlwind. But Daphne was not at home.
She came in at three that morning, maudlin with triumph, and found me
asleep on the floor in my ball-gown, with a half-packed trunk before me.
She brought me tea and toast herself the next morning and offered it on
her knees, which means something for Daphne--she is very stout and
almost unbendable--and explained that I had been her patent of
respectability, and that it had been a _coup_; that Mrs. Langley, of the
Woman's Liberty League, had hired as a maid for the reception and had
never got her foot out of the dressing-room! Red hair? Yes. And when I
told Daphne that Mrs. Langley had helped me into my wrap she got up
heavily and hopped three steps one way and three another, which is the
way Daphne dances with joy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account