gail sargent became suddenly and acutely aware of an entirely new and ethnological subdivision of the human race. she had known of caucasians, mongolians, ethiopians, and the others, but now she was to meet the representatives of the gay, carefree, and entirely uncurbed metropolitan press! they figuratively swarmed from the ground, dropped from the eaves, and wriggled from under the rugs!
immediately after gail had reached home from the accident in the subway, and had been put to bed and given tea, and had repeatedly assured the doctor there was nothing the matter with her, they brought, at her urgent request, copies of the “extras,” which were already being yelled from every street corner and down every quiet residence block.
the accounts were, in the main, more or less accurate, barring the fact that they started with the assumption that there had been one hundred in allison’s party, all killed. later issues, however, regretfully reduced the number of dead to forty, six, and finally none, at which point they became more or less coherent, and gave an exact list of the people who were there, the cause of the accident, and a most appreciatively accentuated history of the heroic work of the men. although she regretted that her picture had by this time crept into the public prints, grouped with the murders and defalcations of the day, she was able to overlook this personal discomfort as one of the minor penalties which civilisation has 151paid for its progress; like electric light bugs and electric fan neuralgia, and the smell of gasolene.
long before this period, however, the reporters had tracked her to her lair; so long before, in fact, that there had been three of them waiting on the doorstep when she was brought into the house, eager young men, with a high spirit of reverence and delicacy, which was concentrated entirely on their jobs. they would have held her on the doorstep until she fainted or dropped dead, if, by so doing, they could have secured one statement, or hint of a statement, upon which they could have fastened something derogatory to her reputation, or the reputation of any of her family or friends; for that was great stuff, and what the public wanted; and they would have photographed her gleefully in the process of expiring. aunt helen davies, being a woman of experience, snatched gail into the house before they had taken more than eight or nine photographs of her, but, from that instant, the doorbell became a nuisance and the telephone bell a torture! both were finally disconnected, but, at as late an hour as one a.m., the house was occasionally assaulted.
by that time gail had telegrams of frantic inquiry from all her friends back home, including the impulsive clemmens, and particularly including a telegram from her mother, stating that that highly agitated lady could not secure a reservation on the first train on account of its being saturday night, but that she would start on the fast eleven-thirty the next morning, whereat gail kissed the telegram, and cried a little, and gave way to the moist joy of homesickness.
in the meantime, the representatives of the gay and carefree and absolutely uncurbed metropolitan press, were by no means discouraged by the fact that they 152had not been able to secure much, except hectic imaginings from the exterior of the sargent house. they were busy in every other possible direction, with the same commendable persistence which we observe in an ant trying to drag a grasshopper up and down a cornstalk on the way home. they secured a straight story from allison, a modest one from the rector, and variously viewed experiences from other male members of the party, and collected huge piles of photographs, among them the charming pictures of gail, which had previously been printed on the innocent pages of arrivals at palm beach and the riviera and other fashionable winter resorts, the whole spread being headed “what society is doing.”
so far the explosion editors of the various papers had seen nothing to particularly commend in the work of their fevered emissaries, and even the heavy-jawed genius who gathered, from silent cogitation over four cigarettes and a quart of beer, the purple fiction that the explosion had cracked the walls of every subway in the city, which were likely to cave in at any time, only received the compliment of a grateful grunt.
little miss piper, of the morning planet, however, was possessed of a better thought. she was a somewhat withered and puckered little woman, who had sense enough to dress so as to excite nothing but pity, and she quietly slipped on her ugly little bonnet with the funny ribbon bow in the back, and hurried out to the magnificent residence of mrs. phyllis worthmore, who loathed publicity and had photographs taken once a month for the purpose.
mrs. phyllis worthmore was invariably sweet and gracious to working women, for, after all, they were her sisters, you know; and she excused herself from a 153caller in order to meet little miss piper in mr. worthmore’s deserted den. mrs. worthmore was highly agitated over the news of the explosion, and she required no particular urging to jabber on and on about her dear friends who had been in that terrible catastrophe, and she was ultra enthusiastic when the name of gail was mentioned.
“oh, miss sargent is quite the sensation of the season!” she gushed. “her people are fairly well to do, i believe; but her beauty makes up for the absence of any extravagant fortune. it is commonly conceded that none of the eligibles in our set are available until miss sargent has made her choice. positively all of them are at her feet!” and, at puckered little miss piper’s later request, she lightly enumerated a few of the eligibles in their set; after which miss piper took to furtive glances at her watch, and to feeling the excessively modulated voice of mrs. phyllis worthmore pounding into her brain like the clatter of a watchman’s rattle.
the result of that light-hearted and light-headed interview, in which mrs. phyllis worthmore, by special request, was not quoted, suddenly sprang on the startled eyes of gail, when she leaped through the sunday morning planet at eight o’clock next morning. an entire page, embellished in the centre with a beautifully printed photograph, was devoted to the sensational beauty from the middle-west! around her were grouped nine smaller photographs; allison, dick rodley, willis cunningham, houston van ploon, the reverend smith boyd, a callow youth who had danced with her three times, a count who had said “how do you do?” and sailed for europe, and two men whom she had never met. all these crack eligibles were classified 154under the general head of “slaves to her witching smile,” and a big, boxed-in list was given, in extremely black-faced type, stating, in dollars and cents, the exact value in the matrimonial market of each slave; and the lively genius who had put together this symposium, by a toweringly happy thought conceived in the very height of the rush hours, totalled the whole, and gave it as the commercial worth of gail’s beauty and charm. it ran into thirteen figures, including the dollar mark and the two ciphers for cents.
nor was this all! a lightning fingered artist had depicted, at the bottom of the group, outline sketches of the nine suitors, on their knees in a row, holding up, towards the beautiful picture of gail in the centre, their hearts in one hand and their bags of money in the other; and, even though overworked, the artist had not forgotten to put the cross of the legion of honour on the breast of the count, nor the sparse van dyke on willis cunningham. flowing with further facile fancy, he had embellished the upper right-hand corner of the group with an extremely lithe and slim-waisted drawing of the streaming haired gail, as a siren fishing in the sea; and the sea, represented by many frothing curls, was, in the upper left-hand corner, densely populated by foolish little gold fish, rushing eagerly to the dangling bait of the siren. any one of the parties mentioned could have sued the planet for libel; but they would not, and they would have been made highly ridiculous if they had, which was the joke of the whole matter, and left the metropolitan press more and more highly uncurbed; which was a right sturdily to be maintained in a land of free speech!
when lucile teasdale and arly fosland arrived at jim sargent’s house at ten o’clock, and had been let in 155at the side entrance, they found gail dabbing her eyes with a powder puff, taken from a little black travelling bag which stood open at her side. arlene was a second later than lucile in clasping gail in her arms, because she had to lift a travelling veil. the two girls expressed their condolence and their horror of the outrage, and volubly poured out more sympathy; then they sat down and shrieked with laughter.
“it’s too awful for words!” gasped lucile. “but it is funny, too.”
gail’s chin quivered.
“there should be a law against such things,” she broken-heartedly returned, in a voice which wavered and halted with the echoes of recent sobs.
“i’ll put the planet out of business!” stormed jim sargent, stalking up and down the library, with his fists clenched and his face purple. “i’ll bankrupt them!” and he paused, as he passed, to reassuringly pat the shoulder of poor aunt grace, who sat perfectly numb holding one thumb until the bone ached. her eyes were frankly red, and the creases of worry had set into her brow so deeply that they must have scarred her skull. “i’ll hunt up the whelp who wrote that stuff, and the cur who drew it, and the dog who inserted it!” frothed the raging jim. “i’ll—”
“the press is the palladium of our national liberty, uncle jim,” drawled the soothing voice of ted.
“you can’t do a thing about it,” counselled gerald fosland, a stiff looking gentleman who never made a mistake of speech, or manner, or attire.
“shucks, gail!” suddenly remembered lucile. “the big faulker reception is this week, and your gown was to be so stunning. don’t go home!”
156mrs. helen davies cast on her feather-brained daughter a glance of severe reproof.
“have you no sense of propriety, lucile?” she warned. “gail, very naturally, can not remain here under the circumstances. it does great credit to her that, immediately upon realising this horrible occurrence, she telegraphed to her mother, without consulting any of us, that she was returning.”
“i just wanted to go home,” said gail, her chin quivering and her pretty throat tremulous with breath pent from sobbing.
“it’ll all blow over, gail,” argued uncle jim, in deep distress because she was going so soon. if she had only stopped long enough to pack up, they might have persuaded her to stay. “just forget it, and have a good time.”
“jim,” ordered the stern voice of aunt helen, “will you be kind enough to see if any one is out in front?”
“certainly,” agreed jim, wondering why his wife’s sister was suddenly so severe with him.
“it’s time to start,” called ted, with practised wisdom allowing ten minutes for good-byes, parting instructions, and forgotten messages.
the adieus were said. aunt grace, clasping gail in her arms, began to sob, out of a full heart and a general need for the exercise. gerald fosland took the hand of his wife and kissed it, in most gallant fashion.
“i shall miss you dreadfully, my dear,” he stated.
“i shall be thinking of you,” responded arlene, adjusting her veil.
mrs. davies drew arlene into the drawing room.
“it was so sweet of you to agree to accompany gail,” she observed. “it would be useless to attempt 157to influence her now, but i look to you to bring her back in a week. her prospects are really too brilliant to be interrupted by an unfortunate episode of this nature.”
