But Lisle was by no means happy in the company of her old friend. She seemed to have had her eyes opened to a great many things in him that did not satisfy her—ways that she had never noticed before he went away to college. She went through her engagements with him in a continual state of protest and anxiety, and in fact, a state of defense.
Not that she ever spent time in argument. She was not of that nature, but now that she was beginning to see more clearly, Victor was no longer her ideal friend, and she sometimes had hard work to keep up the pretense of enjoying a pleasant occasion. Continually she was hoping that Victor would soon be called away to wherever he was going in the scheme of war work.
But the days went on and Victor was still hanging around, apparently doing nothing but having a good time. Playing tennis and golf, playing polo sometimes, out in his motorboat or his handsome high-powered car, as long as gasoline was to be had. Not making much show of sacrifice in any way, even though his land was at war. Only going on as always, having the best time he could and denying himself nothing.
“The war will cure him of that,” said Mrs. Kingsley. “He doesn’t really know what it’s all about yet. But he will. Wait till he gets out among the other soldiers!”
“Sometimes I wonder whether he’s really expecting to go at all,” said Lisle one day. “He keeps talking of that party of his as if it was an assured fact—as if it was the end and aim of his existence. And of course, the time is going on and the date is almost here.”
“Yes,” said her mother, “and dear, if that party is really to come off, of course you’ll have to attend it, and we ought to be thinking about a dress. It is to be very formal, you know.”
“Well, I don’t feel like spending a lot of time and money on an evening dress when we are at war and ought to be thinking about other things—little children starving and needing clothing. I don’t think it is all right. And an evening dress isn’t really anything that is absolutely necessary.”
“Yes, I know, of course, but I’m afraid this is really necessary, my dear. You know Mrs. Vandingham has always been a very close friend of ours, and I’m afraid she will be hurt if you do not take as much pains about a dress for her son’s party as you have done for other parties in the past. And you know Victor has always recognized your old dresses, even if you have worn them only once. He’ll be sure to tell his mother.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” said Lisle with a sigh, “but I don’t like it! Mother, it almost seems wicked to be dolling up this way when a lot of the boys we know are actually dying to save our country from awful peril! Mother, do you know they think Richard Gerrick was killed in action? Or at least maybe missing in action. I don’t see why Mrs. Vandingham is willing to have a great party now when everybody is anxious and worried, and we don’t know what dreadful thing may happen next.”
“Are you sure they are going to have it, dear? Have you asked Victor about it lately? I think that would simplify things greatly, if you would just speak of it and ask if it is really coming off or will he be called to serve before it is time?”
“Perhaps,” said Lisle with a troubled glance. “I’ll ask him if I can do so without bringing it up myself, but I’m almost afraid to mention it lest he go off into one of those fits of modernism, the way he did in the store. It just makes me sick every time I remember that.”
“Well, I scarcely think he will,” said her mother. “I think he realizes we didn’t like that at all. You’d better find out, if you can. And then, perhaps we can think of a way to fix up one of your evening dresses that you have worn before. There’s the wine-colored tulle you haven’t worn much. I don’t believe Victor ever saw that on you, and you could liven it up with a white sash edged with pale blue that would give it a patriotic touch.”
“Perhaps,” said Lisle without enthusiasm. “All right, I’ll try to find out.” But she went away listlessly, as if she did not relish the task before her.
But as it happened, Lisle didn’t have to do what she dreaded at all. Victor took it all in his own hands.
He arrived at the house the next evening, his eyes shining with the look Lisle had learned to interpret as the glow that came when he had got his own way. Her heart sank, for somehow she knew that something must have happened. Victor was not going to be steadied and strengthened into the man he ought to be, but was likely going to be allowed to go on and do as he pleased. How this could possibly be when one considered that he was going to have to deal with the government, she could not explain. Although she knew that some people had what they called “pull” and found ways to carry out their own wishes, even in opposition to the laws and regulations that had been laid down for the guidance of the country. Victor had always been one of those who found ways to get ahead of others. She wondered what he had done now that gave him that look of having won over against great odds. And suddenly she realized that it was a look such as his mother wore at times when she had succeeded in getting her own way.
So, soberly, with searching eyes, she sat herself down to listen to his eager tale.
“Well, Lisle, it’s all settled at last, and now you can plan to go down to the store in the morning and select your dress for the party. You haven’t said anything about it, so I figured you hadn’t bought it yet. But there’s no time to lose now, for everything’s all fixed up, and it’s only ten days off, you know.”
“What do you mean, Victor? Only ten days off? Do you mean you have to leave for the army as soon as that?” Lisle asked it calmly and not at all as if she were in the least excited.
“Leave!” shouted Victor with a laugh of triumph. “But I don’t have to leave. Not at all! I’m to stay right here for the duration! Isn’t that great?”
“Oh!” gasped Lisle. “Do you mean you have been rejected? But on what grounds? You’re perfectly healthy, aren’t you?”
“Rejected, nothing! Not on your life! I haven’t been rejected—I’ve been asked to stay at home and take over the management of my dad’s business. You see, it’s quite important. He’s been selected to make some important things for defense. I’m not at liberty to tell what, of course, but I’m to have charge of the office. Of course you know—or maybe you hadn’t heard—that Dad hasn’t been well for almost a year now, and the specialist he’s been to has said positively that he can’t run the business alone. He needs my help, as I’m the only one close enough to him to know all about his affairs. So the government has arranged to have me take over. Of course, if Dad gets better, he’ll be back here now and then to keep in touch with things, but I’ll be the chief executive, and I’ll be no end busy. I’ll have to be going back and forth to Washington constantly and working night and day. And there’ll be no chance of my having to go to camp and be put through all that drilling and training dope and that fighting business. I’ll be right here in one of the most important—if not the most important plant in the whole United States. Of course, there’ll be other people associated with us in the work, but I’ll be practically head of the whole shooting match. Isn’t that great, Lisle? Can’t you congratulate me? Haven’t I just landed on my feet again, like I always do?”
“Why, yes, it does seem that way, doesn’t it? That is, if that was what you wanted. Personally I’d rather go and fight, for I’d feel more as if I were really doing something worthwhile. But I suppose your plant must be very important, too.”
“Oh, it is, Lisle! It’s about the most popular plant in the whole country. We have a new invention that is practically going to change the whole operation of the war and bring victory, so I feel I’m far more important here than if I stuck on a uniform and swelled around shooting people. I never did have much of a yen for that sort of thing anyway. Of course, when I was a kid, I used to fight and all that, but I wasn’t brought up to be a fighter. Our family always felt there were better ways of settling differences than going out and seeing which side could kill the most people, so I’m just as well satisfied. Although if I’d gone, I was practically promised a major’s commission an
d all that. But seeing Dad and the government need me here, I’m entirely satisfied.”
“Yes,” said Lisle, trying to be appreciative. “Well, it’s fine that you’re pleased, and of course your mother will be glad to have you at home after you’ve been away so long at college and other places. What is it you’re going to be, Victor? An executive in your father’s office?”
“Well, not quite that, but it’s an important executive position anyhow. And now, Lisle, can you arrange to go down and get your outfit tomorrow morning? I’d like to go with you and help select it. It’s all kinds of important to me how you look at the party, you know, and I shall have plenty of time to trot around with you and look things over before you decide. I’m not to take over the plant till the week after the party, so I’ll have plenty of time.”
Lisle was still for a moment, looking thoughtfully at her old playmate. Then she spoke, slowly and gently. “That’s very kind of you,” she said, “but it won’t be necessary. Mother and I have arranged to take care of that.”
There was a quiet dignity in her manner that was not like anything Victor had ever seen before in the usually docile girl, and he looked at her in amazement. What did this mean? She had always seemed glad to have him go shopping with her. He frowned.
“What’s the idea?” he said. “I certainly have a right to have a say about what you shall wear at my party, haven’t I? It’s a great time for me. You don’t seem to realize that I shall be coming into my majority, and I certainly want my best girl to appear just right.”
“You speak as if it were to be a sort of coronation affair,” she said, smiling. “But now, about your suggestion. I am sorry if I don’t usually dress to please your taste. You often used to admire my clothes, I remember.”
“Oh, yes, they’ve been well enough when you were nothing but a high school girl, but you must admit that this occasion calls for a little more sophistication, and your mother’s taste isn’t always that. You see, she hasn’t got it into her head yet that you are grown up, and I think it’s time that you did some choosing for yourself. It’s just what I was telling you the other day. You let your mother think for you, and it’s time you were on your own. So you and I will go down tomorrow early and pick out something. Don’t tell your mother about it until afterward and see if after all she isn’t pleased with our taste. She certainly wouldn’t want you to wear something that I disapproved of, would she?”
“I’m sorry,” said Lisle calmly, “I really don’t think that it would occur to her, or to me either, that you had anything to say about what I shall wear to your party. If you can’t trust me to dress fittingly, I think it would be better for me not to come at all.”
“For Pete’s sake, Lisle, what’s got into you? You never acted this way before. Is your mother still angry over that misunderstanding we had at the store the other day? Because if she is, after all the humble pie I had to eat, I think it’s time that we had a little more plain speaking. I think it’s time she kept her hands off our affairs once and for all. And I demand that you and I go down and select this dress ourselves. That can be a sort of test proposition between you and me.”
A flame of anger burned in Lisle’s eyes, but she kept them veiled for a moment, her lashes down. Then she lifted them calmly, her voice quite cool and steady. “Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, old friend, but that will not be possible, because, you see, I am not buying a new dress.”
“You’re not buying a new dress? You don’t mean to tell me you are coming to my party in some old rag that everybody’s been seeing you in for who knows how long? The kind of thing you’ve been bringing out of the past ever since I got home?”
Lisle smiled.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Haven’t you heard that our country is at war and we are asked not to buy unnecessary things? But I don’t believe even you will call my dress an old rag. However, if you don’t like what I am wearing when I get to your party you can just give me a high sign, and I’ll slip home the back way and nobody will be wiser. But as for letting you select my dress, even if I were getting a new one, nothing doing. And I don’t quite understand why you think you have a right to even suggest it. Now, if you would like to see that book we were talking about the other day, I happened to find it this morning when I was going through the bookcase. I’ll get it for you.”
“Hang the book!” said the indignant youth. “I don’t care if I ever see it. I want to know what you’re proposing to wear at my party. If it isn’t right, believe me, I’ll make the biggest row you ever heard of. Now, I demand to know. If it’s already bought, I want to see it. What is it?”
“I don’t care to discuss the matter any further, Victor, and I fail to understand why you should have any more jurisdiction over my garments than you do over those of any of your other guests.”
“Why certainly, I have more interest in what you wear. You’re my best girl, you know, and I’ve got to be pleased by the way you appear!”
“Or else?” said Lisle, lifting her eyebrows quietly.
“Or else I’m off you for life,” said the young man wrathfully. “Do you think I want everybody criticizing your dowdiness when you appear for the first time in public as regularly belonging to me?”
“Oh, but I shall not be appearing that way,” said Lisle sweetly. “I’ll just be one of your childhood friends, that’s all. And there will be so many people present that nobody is going to take particular notice of what I’m wearing. Besides, most of my friends are being very careful to dress quietly for all occasions. It’s a matter of patriotism, you know, so I don’t think you need to worry. But you’ll have to rid yourself of the idea that I belong to you in a special way, for I do not, and I wouldn’t care to have people think I did. In fact, I should stay away entirely if I thought you would put me in any such position as that before people. I am not your girl, or any kind of possession of yours, and I want that very plainly understood before the time comes.”
“Say now, look here, Lisle! You’re acting awfully strange. Of course I want people to understand that you and I are engaged and that we are to be married very soon. I thought my party would be a good time to announce our approaching marriage, quietly, if not formally.”
“But we’re not engaged, Victor! And we’re not going to be married, so that’s entirely out,” said Lisle almost wearily. “And I refuse entirely to be made a party to any such appearance. If you are going to keep on with such nonsense I’m not coming to the party at all! And I mean that!”
“Now, Lisle, you’re not being kind,” said the boy stormily. “You didn’t used to be like that. You always were cooperative. I don’t like the way you’re acting at all. I come over here to make arrangements to take you shopping, and you get all up in arms and decline to go. And besides, I had some shopping of my own that I wanted you to help me with. We’re going downtown and selecting you an engagement ring tomorrow morning the first thing. Now, will you be good and do what I say?”
“No,” said Lisle gently. “That’s quite out of the question. I’m not engaged, I don’t intend to be engaged to anyone at present, and I certainly don’t want an engagement ring. You’ll just have to put such ideas entirely out of your calculations if you want cooperation from me.”
Then the telephone sounded a clear note in the hall and Lisle said, “Excuse me, please,” and hurried to answer it, while Victor stalked angrily back and forth in the living room and met her with the blackest of frowns when she returned.
Lisle came back to the room with a pleasant smile on her face.
“Sorry to interrupt our conversation,” she said, “but Mrs. Carlisle is bringing her niece and nephew over to introduce them. They are visiting for a few days from Boston, and she wants them to meet some young people. Of course I had to tell her to come.”
“I don’t see that you did,” said Victor haughtily. “You could have said you were going out or had guests or something. You knew perfectly well that I have important things to talk to you about and that I w
ouldn’t want an audience.”
“Why, no, I didn’t,” said Lisle calmly. “I didn’t know you had anything more to discuss. I thought we had said all there was to say on that subject and that it would be a good thing to have a little change in scenery. I thought you’d stick around and get acquainted, too. I’ve heard this niece is a very pretty girl. Her name is Bernice Brandon, and her brother is Arthur. Have you met them yet? We might have some music. I hear they both sing.”
“Oh, my word! Sing! I suppose they have voices like a lot of cats on the back fence.”
“Oh, perhaps not so bad as that!” laughed Lisle.
And then the doorbell sounded through the house.
“Great scott, Lisle, you don’t suppose they’re here already? Let me get out. I don’t want to see those dopes.”
“Oh you can’t do that, Victor. I told them you were here.”
“Like I should worry what you told them. I’m not going to be bored with a lot of dopes all evening. Not on your life. I’ll see you in the morning, Lisle. I’ll be here at ten on the dot, and I don’t want you to keep me waiting.”
But already the front door had opened and the three visitors had reached the entrance door of the living room.
And then they were inside the room, and Mrs. Carlisle was facing the irate Victor with a smile on her face.
“Oh, good evening, Mrs. Carlisle,” said Lisle, stepping forward graciously, with perfect poise. “So nice you could come over.”
Mrs. Car lisle introduced her young people. Victor, meantime, had backed away from the doorway and was standing sullenly over by the mantel while these formalities were going on. Lisle thought to herself that it was a lucky thing that there was no other exit from that room or Victor would certainly have sought it and vanished. In fact, she wasn’t at all sure what he would do next, for lately he seemed to have discarded all his courtesy, in spite of his mother’s care in training him. Lisle wasn’t at all sure he would be even decently polite to her guests in his present state of mind. It was all she could do to keep a gracious smile on her face and coolly turn and say, “You know Victor Vandingham, of course, Mrs. Carlisle.” And then she dared to lift her eyes to Victor’s face, and saw to her astonishment that he had come forward pleasantly, with eyes of admiration, toward the niece and was ready to acknowledge the introductions with his best manner. So! That was that! Victor was conquered for the moment. Lisle drew a deep breath of relief and gave herself to seating her guests pleasantly.