"Would you marry him?"
"Not on your life! Excuse my French, Mona, but you do make me tired! NOW will you be good? We're nearly home and I had a lot of things I wanted to ask you, and here you've been and went and gone and wasted all our time! Foolish girl! Here we are at my house, and I thank you, kind lady, for bringing me safely home. If you'll let your statuesque footman see me in at my own door, I'll promise to dream of you all night."
The girls exchanged affectionate good-nights, and Patty ran up the steps and Louise let her in.
"Nobody home?" asked Patty, noting the dim lights in the rooms.
"No, Miss Patty," answered Louise, "Mr. and Mrs. Fairfield are not in yet."
"Well, I'm not a bit sleepy, Louise, and I'm not going to bed now. I shall stay in the library for awhile,—perhaps until they come home."
Louise took Patty's wraps and went away, and Patty wandered around the library selecting a book to read. The girl was a light sleeper, and she often liked to read a while before retiring.
But after she had selected a book and arranged a cosy corner in a big easy-chair by a reading light, she still sat idle, with her book unopened.
"I don't feel a bit like reading," she thought to herself; "I do hate to come home from a party so early. Of course I could write some letters, but I don't feel like that, either. I feel like doing something frisky."
She jumped up and turned on more lights. Then, chancing to see herself in the long mirror, she bowed profoundly to the pretty reflected figure, saying: "Good-evening, Miss Fairfield, how well you're looking this evening. Won't you sing a little for us?"
Then she danced into the music-room, and sitting down at the piano, sang a gay little song.
Then she sang another, and then looking over some old music she came across the little song, "Beware," that she had sung over the telephone to Kit Cameron. Naturally her thoughts turned to that young man, whom she had almost forgotten, and she wondered if he had met Elise yet.
"That was quite a jolly little escapade," she said to herself; "that young man certainly thought I was a little black-eyed beauty, and when he does see Elise, of course he'll think she's the one. I believe I'll call him up and mystify him a little more. It's all right, because I've really been introduced to him, and if he doesn't remember me, I can't help it! Probably he'll be out anyway; but I'll have a try at it."
Returning to the library, Patty sat down at the telephone and called up
Mr. Cameron's number.
His own gay, cheery self answered "Hello," and Patty said in a shy little voice, "Is this you, Mr. Cameron?"
"Bless my soul! if it isn't my fair Unknown, again!"
"Why do you call me, fair, when you know I'm dark?"
"Oh, fair in this case means bewitching and lovely. It doesn't stand for tow hair and light blue eyes! and neither do I!"
"But you said you liked blondes."
"I used to, before I knew you."
"But you don't know me."
"Oh, but I do! I know you a whole heap better than lots of people who have seen you. There's something in a telephone conversation that discloses the real inner nature. It was dear of you to call me up to-night. You don't know how it pleases me!"
"Oh, I didn't do it to please you. But I'm all alone in my dungeon tower—"
"Wait a minute; what IS a dungeon tower?"
"Oh, don't quibble. Anyway, I'm all alone, and I simply had to have some one to speak to."
"How did you know I'd be here?"
"Be there! Why, I assumed that you sat at your telephone every evening, waiting to see if I would call you!"
"You little rascal! That's exactly what I have done, but I don't see how you knew it. Are you still a captive princess?"
"Yes; they keep me on bread and water, and not very much of that."
"Couldn't I come and try to liberate you?"
"No, Sir Knight. Alas, you would but be captured yourself."
"But to be captured in such a cause, would be a glorious fate!"
"Oh, aren't you romantic! I really wish it were the Fifteenth Century, and you could come on a dashing charger, and rescue me with a rope ladder! I'm simply dying for an escapade!"
"All right; I'll be there in a few minutes!"
"No, no! it's just five centuries too late. Now, one can only meet people in humdrum drawing-rooms."
"And do you think there's no romance left in the world?"
"I can't find any." Naughty Patty put a most pathetic inflection in her voice, which touched Mr. Cameron's heart.
"Look here, my lady," he said, "there IS romance left in this old world, and we're IT! Now, this telephoning is all very well, but I'm determined to meet you face to face. And that before long, too."
"Oh, you've been making inquiries about me. You know I forbade that."
"No, you didn't; you only said I mustn't ask Central who telephoned. There was surely no harm in asking my cousin who called her up the other night. And very naturally she told me. So she's going to be the Fairy Godmother who will bring us together by the touch of her magic wand."
"Oh, if you know who I am, the fun is all gone out of our escapade!"
"Not at all; the fun is only about to begin."
"Then Marie did tell you all about me?" And Patty's tones betokened disappointment.
"She didn't need to tell me much about you. She told me your name, and the rest I want to know about you, I either know already or I shall learn for myself."
"If you know my name, why don't you call me by it?" And Patty had great difficulty to stifle her laughter.
"May I call you by your first name?"
"Not as a regular thing, of course. But if you know it, you may use it just once. But you can only use it to say good-night. For this session is over now."
"But I don't WANT to say good-night. I want to talk to you a long time yet."
"Alas, that may not be. It is even now time for my jailers to visit my dungeon, and if they catch me at this foolish trick, they will probably reduce my allowance of bread and water. And so, if you're going to call me by name, you must do it quickly, for I'm going to hang up this receiver, as soon as I say good-night!"
Patty's positive tones apparently carried conviction that she would do just as she said, for Mr. Cameron sighed deeply and responded, "It is such a beautiful name it seems a pity to use it only once. But I know you mean what you say, so as your liege knight, fair lady, I obey. Good-night—Elise—"
The name came slowly, as if the speaker wished to make the most of it, and Patty fairly thrust the receiver back on its hook as she burst into laughter. It surely was a joke on the young man! He had asked Marie who was her pretty brunette friend, and Marie had honestly thought he must mean Elise Farrington.
Patty was still giggling when her parents came in from a concert they had been attending.
"What IS the matter, Patty?" asked Nan. "Why do you sit up here alone, grinning like a Chessy cat, and giggling like a school-girl? Were the Hepworths so funny that you can't get over it?"
And then Patty told Nan and her father the whole story of Kit Cameron and the telephone.
Nan laughed in sympathy, but Mr. Fairfield looked a little dubious.
"And I thought you a well-brought up young woman," he said,—half in earnest and half in jest. "Do you think it's correct to telephone to strange young men? I'm shocked! that's what I am,—SHOCKED."
"Fiddlesticks, Fred," said Nan; "it's perfectly all right. In the first place, the man HAS been introduced to Patty. She met him at Miss Homer's."
"But she telephoned BEFORE she met him," stormed Mr. Fairfield, for
Patty had told the whole story.
"But she didn't do it purposely," said Nan, impatiently. "She got him on the wire by mistake. She couldn't help THAT. And, anyway, when he said he was Miss Homer's cousin, that made it all right. I think it's a gay little joke, and I'd like to see that young man's face when he meets Patty!"
"I shan't meet him," said Patty, pretending to look doleful; "he hates tow-headed girls."
"Well, you're certainly that," said her father, looking at her with pretended disapproval. "I have to tell you the truth once in awhile, because everybody else flatters you until you're a spoiled baby."