The Flower Brides

  Camilla found herself growing very angry indeed, and her ancestral courage rose as the other girl grew more and more insolent. She was a trifle white around her lips, and her eyes grew dark and unsmiling, but otherwise there was no change in her appearance.

  “Wouldn’t it be a good thing if you were to explain what this is all about?” she asked quietly.

  “Oh, you’re terribly innocent, aren’t you? You don’t need any explanation. I know your kind. A girl of your type doesn’t pick up the son of a millionaire and make him take her to the place where I saw you last week with Jeff Wainwright without knowing just what it’s all about.”

  Camilla was thankful that she was not a blushing girl. She could fairly well depend upon herself to grow perhaps whiter in an emergency but not red, and now, though her heart gave a sudden lurch and seemed to turn right over in her angry young breast, she kept her poise and looked steadily into the eye of the other girl, who had taken out a gold cigarette case, lit a cigarette, and was puffing it furiously at her foe.

  “I don’t understand you,” said Camilla coolly. “It is quite a common circumstance, isn’t it, for a girl to go out to dinner with a friend?”

  “Friend?” sneered the other girl. “You call him a friend, do you? That’s preposterous! I wonder what he would say if he could hear you? A man doesn’t make a friend out of every girl he plays around with! And don’t fancy he’ll ever marry you. He’s not the marrying kind. And besides all that, a man like that doesn’t seek a wife in the laboring class. You are not of his class. You are just a low-down working girl!”

  Stephanie’s voice was like the hiss of a serpent.

  Camilla was very angry indeed now. She wanted to rise and strike this insolent girl in the face. She wanted to scream and cry out at the insults that were being flung at her. She knew that both tears and hysterical laughter were hovering very near the surface, and she was holding her emotions back by the mere force of her will. She hoped her voice did not tremble as she answered calmly.

  “I really hadn’t considered marrying him!” She took a deep breath, to steady herself. “You see,” she went on, “you are quite right about our not being of the same class. But you are mistaken about my being so terribly low born. It so happens that though I am working at present I really belong to royalty, and you know, perhaps, that it is not permitted that royalty should marry outside of royalty.”

  There was just a little ring of triumph in the clear voice as Camilla gathered strength with her words. There was also a light in her eyes that somehow startled her visitor and made her pause in her angry torrent of insolence. Camilla was certain of herself and did not seem at all quelled by the taunts that had been flung at her. Camilla had a poise that the other girl had never known.

  Stephanie Varrell surveyed her contemptuously, amazed that this mere fragment of the working classes should dare to stand out against her and smile in a superior way and answer back. Royalty! Could it be that there was some mistake?

  “Royalty!” she sneered, looking her over from the tip of her shabby little brown shoes to the top of her perfectly groomed golden head. Camilla was always exquisitely dainty, even in her working hours. She had lovely hands most carefully cared for. Her nails were not stained red nor allowed to grow long and pointed like claws. They were artistically lovely hands, fascinating to watch. Camilla was neat and trim and stylish, too, even in the little brown knit dress, the work of her mother’s hands, that had served a long term of wear and still had time ahead. Camilla was a lady, and the other girl could not help seeing it. Just for the moment she was baffled. She looked as an angry bull might have looked when presented with a bunch of clover instead of the red rag he had been charging.

  “Royalty? Are you then a foreigner?” As if that accounted for it.

  “Yes,” said Camilla, with a bell-like quality in her voice. “Yes, I am a foreigner. I don’t belong here.” She sounded as if she were proud of the fact.

  “Oh,” said Stephanie, “one of those little defunct nations, I suppose, that you find it hard to locate on the map?”

  “Oh no,” said Camilla lightly, “none of those. You won’t find it on your map. My citizenship is in heaven. And now, don’t you think we’ve said about enough? I really can’t spare any more time to talk. I have work to do”—with a glance at the clock—“and I must get back to it at once. You will excuse me, I’m sure.” And she swung her chair around to her typewriter and began to make her fingers fly rapidly over the keys, blindly writing whatever came into her head.

  Stephanie Varrell stared at her for an instant incredulously, then she said in a shocked tone, “You must be crazy!”

  But Camilla did not answer. She went right on writing, the click of her typewriter keys filling the silence eloquently.

  Stephanie Varrell watched her, her face gradually hardening into anger again.

  “You think you’re very smart, don’t you?” she mocked. “But all the same, you’ll find out that it’s dangerous to interfere with what belongs to me. Jeff Wainwright is mine, and I’m not going to have other girls playing around with him! Understand? If you happen to transgress again, you’ll find yourself out of a job quicker than you can think. I happen to know Mr. Whitlock well, and I have ways of making people do what I say. You’ll find that out, too, if you choose to ignore this warning, royalty or no royalty!”

  The high shrill voice ceased, and Stephanie Varrell walked out of the office and slammed the door viciously. But Camilla kept on making her fingers fly over those keys blindly until she heard the elevator stop, its doors open and shut, and move on down. Then she rose and flew to the dark little cloakroom where she kept her wraps and, burying her face in the sleeve of her old black coat, burst into tears, sobbing as if her heart would break. They were almost silent tears, however, for she did not know what minute the other secretary would come back, and very soon she was able to control herself. That was a hard thing about being a working girl—she hadn’t leisure even to weep!

  Yet afterward she knew it was better so, for if she had cried long her mother would have noticed it when she went home. Mothers always saw through everything. But Mother mustn’t know about this. It would kill Mother to know that anybody had dared talk to her that way.

  She hurried to the washroom and dashed cold water on her eyes, and by the time Marietta Pratt returned, she seemed to be her sweet little self again, perhaps a little dewy around the eyes, but all right otherwise. She was ready to leave as the other girl came in and gave even her sharp eyes little chance to inspect her fellow worker. But Camilla, as she walked down the hall to the elevator, had a feeling that she was leaving a conversation behind in that room that would somehow get across to Marietta. How terrible it would be if conversations had a way of making themselves perpetuated and audible to others. It almost seemed as if she ought to have opened the windows and let some of those dreadful words out. She shivered as she stepped into the elevator, and the elevator boy grinned at her sympathetically and said, “Cold day!” Camilla gave him a wan smile through lips that were stiff with the shock of what she had just passed through. She was thankful that her recent caller’s words were not rolling down the big stone corridors of the building in audible form for the world to hear!

  It seemed to her as she walked out into the bright winter day as if the very sunshine hurt her and the keen air went through her. Humiliation was upon her the like of which she had never dreamed that any well-meaning person could suffer! To have been dragged down into such a mortifying situation! To have been forced to listen to such charges! To have been the target of such insolence, such implications!

  She walked down the street and past the restaurant where she usually took her lunch without even noticing it. She was not hungry. She only wanted to get out away somewhere and try to get her bearings once more. She wanted to get calm. But as she walked her mind fairly seethed with indignation. Everything that other girl said came back again and shouted itself at her until it seemed to her the passersby mus
t hear, and every step of the way she was thinking of something clever she might have said in answer. Her cheeks were burning red and her eyes were flashing with a great light, but it was not a light of humility. It was a light of pride and anger.

  Presently she found herself in a small park where a few chilly sparrows hopped noisily about. She sat down on a windswept bench and tried to keep warm. It seemed as if her limbs were too tired to bear her farther. And then she felt the tears stinging into her eyes again. This would not do. She must not cry here where passersby could see her. Somebody would presently be offering help. She sat up straight and stared into the distance, and it was just then she remembered the haven of her soul and began to pray.

  Oh, God! Oh, God! But when she tried to go on she found it was in words somewhat similar to the cursing psalms. Ah! Was there something wrong in her own heart? Surely this terrible experience that had come upon her was not in any way her fault! Or was it? Was there some lingering doubt in her mind about her own conduct? No, not really. She had not sought that young man. He had come out of the darkness to help her. He had insisted on staying by her and helping. He had come back of his own accord, without invitation. He had sent her flowers. There wasn’t anything she could have done about it without being rude and ungrateful. Of course, she didn’t have to go to that dinner with him, but her mother had approved and Miss York had thought it was wonderful, a chance for her to have a little innocent relaxation. No, it was something more than that that was troubling her. It was that kiss that she had allowed, no, in which she knew she had participated. Just the yielding of her lips, just the answering sweetness to his, a kiss that had seemed so reverent. Yet now she so loathed herself for having allowed it and having cherished it in her memory afterward. The man was likely engaged to this terrible girl, and yet he went around kissing other girls!

  That other girl was beautiful. If she was his, why didn’t he stay with her? Oh, it was a sickening world, all topsy-turvy. You couldn’t trust anybody but God and your own mother. And perhaps even Mother had been wrong in thinking it was right for her to go to dinner with a stranger. And yet he hadn’t seemed like a stranger. Oh, what should she do? How was she ever to look herself in the face again, how endure the thought of that session with that awful girl? How ever respect herself again?

  Well, it was what came of trying to go with people of the world. It was all right so long as he was just helping her out of trouble, being kind and nice, but she ought to have made it stop at that. She knew what he was, of course. It was well enough to excuse herself by saying she mustn’t misjudge a stranger. That was only an excuse. His very dress and manner marked him of another world than hers, and she knew in her heart, even if her mother didn’t know, that he was not in her class. Well, she had her lesson now. Never would she forget the humiliation through which she had passed.

  She put her head down on her hand and closed her eyes and tried to pray, but she found so much indignation in her heart that the prayer was choked.

  She began to think over what she had said. She was glad, at least, that she had claimed her heavenly citizenship, her kinship to the royal family of God. And yet, she began to wonder whether even that had pleased God. She had done it in pride and anger, not for His glory. She remembered the words, “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.”

  She hadn’t been crucified to the world while she was getting off those smart sentences about belonging to royalty. She had been trying to show off, to say something that would startle that insolent girl. If she had been entirely crucified to the world—dead with Christ, and in this death-union with Him entering into His risen life, His resurrection power—mere words could not have hurt.

  And now, indeed, a crimson color of shame rolled into her cheeks. Now she was honestly facing facts. She had boasted of her heavenly citizenship just as the world might boast. She had not boasted of the great salvation that had come to her life. She had said nothing of the fact that she had been a sinner saved by an infinitely loving Savior. She hadn’t boasted of the cross of her Lord Jesus Christ, which had put her into the royal family. She had boasted in an earthly way and tried to make that girl think she was great in the earthly sense.

  The wind grew suddenly sharp and cut through her thin coat, making her shiver. The sunshine faded to drab, and the day seemed overcast. There were even worse things than having a girl of the world class her with common flirts and women of the street. It was worse in the eyes of God, yes, and in her own eyes now that she realized it, to have swaggered and boasted of her heavenly lineage as if it were some inherent good in herself that gave her the right to claim such glorious kinship with the Most High.

  That was the bitterest hour that Camilla had ever passed, sitting there looking into her own heart and seeing no superiority in it whatsoever. Robbed of her own spiritual conceit, robbed of her budding joy in her friendship with a man whom she had, of course, idealized—she saw that, too, now—robbed of a certain family pride, which had helped her out many and many a time when the going was hard and rough, she was just plain, shamed Camilla Chrystie with nothing to boast about at all, save that the Lord Jesus Christ had shed His precious blood on Calvary to redeem her.

  Suddenly she was recalled to the fact that it was freezing, that the deep-toned bell of the big clock on the city hall was striking two o’clock and she was due back at the office at one thirty! The letters, the important letters, were not finished!

  She rose hastily and walked on feet that were numb with cold and excitement, almost ran back to her office, and arrived, breathless.

  “Well, I’ll say you had plenty lunch!” said Marietta Pratt, shifting her gum to the other side of her jaw and inspecting Camilla’s chilly, anxious face. “Whad’ya do? Have a heavy date?”

  “No,” said Camilla sharply, “I—it was something—I had to do. I didn’t have any lunch at all. I thought I’d get back sooner. You didn’t by any chance get your letters finished, did you? I wanted to get them all off by three. Hasn’t Mr. Whitlock come back yet?”

  Marietta, who had improved the time in the absence of Camilla and the chief by reading a library book full of murder thrills and mystery, furtively slid the volume under some papers in her desk drawer and whirled around to her typewriter.

  “Naw, he ain’t come in yet. He phoned ta say he’d be late. Some conference he’s got on. Naw, I didn’t get my letters all done yet. I’m workin’ on ’em now. I didn’t know there was any hurry. Say, whyn’t you go on out an’ get some lunch now? He won’t be back fer a while, an’ I’ll tell him you’re comin’ right back.”

  “Thanks, no,” said Camilla wearily, “I’ve got to get this work done and off.” She sat down at her typewriter, and her fingers fairly flew. It was good to get to work again, good not to have to think, just to do the mechanical, routine work and forget her humiliation. She ignored the empty feeling in her stomach and the dizziness in her head. She wrote like a mad machine running away from its driver.

  Along toward four o’clock Marietta paused in her own machinations, gave a languid chew or two to her gum while she surveyed her companion, and then said commiseratingly, “You don’t look sa good! You better go out ’n get a good strong cup o’ coffee! That’ll set ya up. It don’t do ta go ’thout meals, not’s hard’s you work!”

  “Oh, I’m all right,” said Camilla briskly. “I’ve just got a little headache, that’s all.”

  “Ef I was you, I’d go home. I would. Like as not Mr. Whitlock’ll never come back this afternoon ’tall. He’d never know. I won’t tell.”

  Marietta did want to find out who did the murder in her book, and if Camilla went home there would be nothing to stop her reading. But Camilla only shook her head and smiled vaguely.

  “No,” she said, “I’ve got to finish my work. I’m quite all right.” And she typed on, faster than ever, and poor Marietta was forced to work, too.

  As a matter of
fact, Camilla stayed at the office later than usual that night, for Mr. Whitlock came rushing in a little before five with two very important letters he wanted answered that night, and Camilla had to take dictation for another half hour and then wait to type the letters and mail them.

  But Camilla was glad. She had an excuse to give her mother for her great weariness. Mother always noticed when there was anything the matter.

  So at last Camilla’s long day was done and she was free to take her car from the parking space and go home. She wended her way carefully through traffic, reminded sharply of that other night not so long ago when she had started on that wild trip for the doctor and had met with disaster and found a friend. Suddenly a kind of faintness swept over her. She must not count him as a friend anymore. She would never think of him as a friend without remembering the words of that disgusting girl. Those words had swept away from her in one brief instant all the pleasant comfort of his friendship. It reared a wall of unknown possibilities. It made him out a creature of whims and fancies whom it was not safe to trust.

  Not that she had expected to continue the comradeship anymore now that the incident was past, not that she had ever counted on anything more than friendship, but to have to feel that any thought venturing in his direction must be forbidden seemed like snatching away a pleasant perfume, a lovely flower. It placed all that she thought she had on a sordid basis.

  Her face flamed in the dark as she thought of it again, and then she knew by the imminence of tears that she positively must not think of this or she would be sure to cry as soon as she reached home and then Mother would be distressed, and she could not tell Mother. Mother would be shocked and horrified. Mother would feel that her very respectability had been assailed, her family insulted, her young maidenhood outraged. Mother was that way. She belonged to the age where those things mattered so much. If Mother had been a man and a Southerner she would have considered the experience of the morning reasonable grounds to send a challenge to her assailant. Quiveringly, she smiled a sad little smile over the folly and futility of pride. Her vigil in the park had showed her deeper things than mere pride.