Alice Duer Miller

“ Pearl, like Augusta herself, was too much occupied with her own mood to notice that a mood was already waiting for her. It seemed to her that Augusta and Horace were just sitting there as usual, without much to say to each other. She had been looking for a job all the morning, and all the day before, and was discovering that beauty may find it as hard to get a job as it had been to keep one.
"Hullo, Gussie! Hullo, Horrie!" she said, striding in, full of her own troubles. "I think men are just terrible." ”

“ Dressmaking often lightened her black moments; it was to her an exciting form of creation. It had been quickly and casually done, but it had turned out well. Round her neck she wore the silliest little string of bright blue-glass beads, which someone had once given a doll of Antonia's in the dead past when Antonia played with dolls, and which Antonia herself occasionally wore. Antonia had left them in Pearl's room, for her new-found personal neatness did not as yet extend to the care of her possessions, and in an impulse Pearl had put them on and found the result good. So did Antonia. ”

“ I want to tell you gentlemen, now that I have you together, that I think men are just terrible." She had a curious voice, deep and a little rough, more like a boy's than a woman's, yet a voice which when you once knew Pearl you remembered with affection. "This is the fourth job I've lost because men have no self-control. I do my work. I don't even speak to any of you—I'd like to—I'm human, but I don't dare any more. I attend to business, there's no fault found with my work—but I've got to go because some man or other can't work in the office with me. ”

“ I heard the Williams' governess telling someone the other day that Monsieur Allen was déjà très connu dans le monde—le monde gal—gal—something or other. I wish I knew more French. You can't really tell much what goes on on the beach unless you know French. Of course, he's just amusing himself with Dolly."
"I tell you what I think," said Pearl, suddenly becoming aware that she had been staring, and not only this, but also stared at. "I think it's horrid of you to be against your own sister."
"But look at the way she's giggling and wriggling. I feel ashamed of her," said Antonia. ”

“ The next day she settled back to the routine—lessons with Antonia and then with Durland—the public beach—a silent luncheon—then sometimes a little feeble tennis with Antonia; but more often now her mother took the child out with her, as if Pearl were not a proper person to be given charge of a pure young child. Left alone, Pearl would take her book and parasol and retire to the Conway's beach. She seldom read, for, to be candid, she was not a great reader ”

“ Poor Durland, like so many people with a creative turn of mind, simply cannot do mathematics."
"More people than creative geniuses are poor at mathematics," said Pearl genially; and Durland, afraid that she would identify him with his mother in this ridiculous point of view, looked into those pools of gray light and said modestly that he was just a dub at problems.
"Then at half past eleven," Mrs. Conway went on, "you'll be free to take Antonia to the beach—the public beach, where she likes to get a swim and see her little friends." ”

“ Letters which amuse the writer to write rarely fail to amuse the recipient to read. Pearl's letters, arriving as they did in bunches, amused him not only on account of their dashing style but on account of the contrast between this style and the pale demure little person he remembered. Anything written day by day gains a serial interest; and Anthony, without newspapers, waited for Pearl's letters as the great interest of life. ”

“ Augusta, with all her efficiency, could not have swung this job, she thought. It required a solid, almost irrational good temper, which Augusta did not possess. Mrs. Conway would have rendered Augusta acid and powerless in one evening. Pearl was not so efficient in certain ways, but she had good temper and a robust will.
She and Durland went into the sitting room while Mrs. Conway was getting Dolly off to her bridge party. Durland did what, alas, men have been doing for many centuries—he attempted to impress the object of his affection by doing one of the things most certain to alienate her. ”

“ What Williams had really said, for few men are as bad as their adoring women represent them, was that her mother was taking the incident too seriously.
Pearl could not have borne life if it had not been for her daily letter, which she continued to write. Mrs. Conway hardly spoke to her; and if she did, she spoke slowly, enunciating every word carefully as if Pearl's moral obliquity had somehow made her idiotic. Durland, loyal to the death, was not much help, because he merely hated his family and scowled through every meal. ”

“ These were the things that terrified him so—a little girl out in the blackness of that beach in her pajamas. How could he go to Mexico and leave her? He rose and went to the edge of the piazza, which rested on the dunes.
He could see nothing but the stars. ”

“ There was no use in going to the public beach that morning, for the bathing apparatus of barrels and life lines had been washed away, the bathhouses were threatened, and there was a rumor that the sea was washing into Lake Agawam.
Pearl and Antonia sat on their own dunes, watching the wild scene, and suddenly Antonia said, "Look here, Miss Exeter, I want to ask you something. Perhaps I oughtn't to."
Pearl had so completely lost any sense of having a guilty secret that she answered tranquilly, "Go ahead."
"Is Uncle Anthony in love with you—like Mr. Williams?" ”

“ Durland was playing golf and Antonia having supper with her friend Olive. Edna alone received the traveler. She did not reproach him; she gave him the greeting of a woman simply crushed by anxiety.
He said, "I'm awfully sorry about this, Edna. You've had a disagreeable time—aside from the pearls, I mean."
She raised her large sullen eyes.
"If only you had not made me promise, Tony—so that I was not free to turn a thief out of my house until she had actually stolen my valuables. A woman has an intuition when she's allowed to follow it." ”

“ Had he in fact been getting a daily letter all these weeks from Golden Moll? The idea intrigued him not a little.
"I think I'll go and have a talk with her," he said.
"By all means, by all means," said Mr. Albertson. "We've just been waiting for you, you know—just to see how she'll act when confronted with you. She hasn't a notion, you know, that you've left Mexico. But," he went on in his deep rich voice, "I'd speak her fair if I was you. Kindness, Mr. Wood, never does any harm. What are we put in this world for except to help each other—women especially? ”

“ Grown-up people are queer about that. When they do something wise they say it was wise. But when a child does something wise they say it was lucky. Children have more sense than people think; they have to have."
"You have," said Pearl, who had never thought of all this before.
"Now this morning, do you know why mother wanted to get us all out of the house?" Antonia continued.
Pearl felt tempted to say that Mrs. Conway always wanted to get her out of the house, but she merely shook her head, and Antonia went on, "Because she is going to have an interview with my father." ”

“ It wasn't just her beauty though that would probably have been enough; but it was the immense, generous friendliness toward all the [Pg 64] world when the world would allow her to be friendly that warmed and comforted his young spirit. He gazed at her, and suddenly the gaze was cut short by Pearl's decision to stand on her head. Two white feet clapped together in front of Durland's nose. ”

“ Conway chose. A rumor of burglaries in the neighborhood induced Edna to yield.
Then before a week was over algebra became to Durland an illumined subject, a study of mystic beauty and romantic association. He not only mastered it in the proud determination to prove that men were not fools but he invented clever discussions to lengthen his brief hour into an hour and a half; while Antonia, wondering at his industry, kept insisting that it was time to go to the public beach. ”

“ We forgive anything better than being made ridiculous. It was not mere vanity, though, that made Anthony so angry. He knew that much of his power over his sister had been destroyed. Everything that he suggested in the future would be met by Edna's amused "Another priceless pearl, Anthony." Yes, he said to himself as he sat with folded arms and stared out of the train window, he had made a fool of himself. What did he know of the real Miss Exeter? ”

“ Pearl took a parasol and went and sat on the beach, concealed by the jutting of a dune. She took a book with her, but hardly read. She sat there for an hour, and about four, knowing that Dolly and Williams had arranged to play golf and that she would now have the house to herself, she went back, thinking about the Sunday papers. Almost the only hardship she felt in her position was that her rights to the newspapers were not properly respected—the butler, who was a baseball enthusiast, regularly removing the papers to the pantry as soon as Mrs. Conway had read the headlines. ”

“ Sulky children, before they actually burst into tears, have a way of almost visibly swelling like a storm cloud. It would be wrong to suggest that anything as lovely as Pearl Leavitt could swell, and yet there was something of this effect as she stared down at the office manager. ”

“ There had always been a kind of magic about Pearl, and wasn't magic the highest form of human efficiency? It was not breaking one's word to substitute a better article than that contracted for. To send Pearl in her place would be keeping her word doubly. She saw Pearl charming Antonia, dazzling the boy, setting all the Conway household to rights by ways peculiarly her own.
"But perhaps they won't want Pearl," said Horace. "I mean——"
"They won't have any choice," said the two girls together.
"But I mean," reiterated Horace, "that no one would want a governess who looked like Pearl." ”

“ Edna, rather to her own surprise, suddenly lost her temper.
"I'm tired of being considered a perfect fool," she said. "Anthony! I know what Anthony thinks—that I'm always going to give Gordon all the children's money. As a matter of fact, I know better than anyone—though it isn't always very easy to say no, no, no, to a man who has been your husband and who insists if he had five dollars he could make a fortune; but I do say it—I always have—always—almost always. It's a little too much to be watched over and lectured by you, Miss Exeter."
After which speech Mrs. Conway left the room. ”

“ But no, you have to be protected from a girl like a herd of sheep from a [Pg 15] wolf—a girl who hasn't even looked at you, at that. If I had ever spoken to the man——"
"Leave the room instantly, Miss Leavitt," said the president, and this time he spoke as if he meant it, for he was afraid the identity of the third vice president might be revealed. Little it mattered to Pearl what the old man meant.
"I wouldn't mind so much," she went on, "if you did not all pretend to be so brave and strong—to protect women. You protect each other—that's who you protect." ”

“ I always think one must be a little disciplined oneself in order to exercise control over others. I must confess, Anthony, that I should pack your selection off tomorrow if I had not given you my word to keep her. Cora quite agrees with me that Miss Exeter would do better on the variety stage than as a governess. I don't think there is any news. Durland has entirely given up smoking, as I always said he would—entirely of his own accord. You don't believe me, but a mother has a sort of psychic understanding of her children. ”

“ She arrived the day before yesterday—your priceless pearl—Antonia's idea of Helen of Troy. But do you think Helen would have made a comfortable sort of governess? This young woman is entirely untrained—turns handsprings on the beach and goes shouting about the tennis courts in a loud Western voice that I do hope the children won't learn to copy. Dolly, who is, as you know, the most sensitively refined being that was ever made, is quite shocked by her. ”

“ Conway had pearls and she had not. Antonia insisted on her putting them around her neck.
"It's much safer—you can't drop them in the sand—Cousin Cora always does—that's Miss Wellington; she's no relation, but she likes us to call her cousin—she wants us to call her aunt, but mother says, 'Wait till she is.'"
"Oh," said Pearl, conscious of a distinct pang, "is she going to be?"
Antonia gave one of her head shakes.
"Mother says, 'Say not the struggle nought availeth.' Older people make a lot of fun of their best friends, don't they?" ”

“ They would not have been surprised to find the universe empty—to hear phantom newsboys calling an extra announcing that no one existed but themselves—"Rumor confirmed that only Pearl and Anthony Exist." ”

“ He says there aren't any people like Sherlock Holmes, and that stories like that make it hard for real detectives. I suppose that's true, and yet it's horrid to face facts sometimes, isn't it, Uncle Anthony? It makes real life seem pretty dull sometimes."
"Real life is not dull, Antonia," said her uncle, "take it from me."
He watched her safely into a conversation with Mr. Albertson, and then, with his hands in his pockets, he sauntered down the steps, across the sand toward that rose-colored parasol.
"Good afternoon, Miss Exeter," he said pleasantly. ”

“ I should have dealt with him; but Durland, who saw it all, was so cunning and manly, and ordered him out of the house. Your sister is naturally annoyed with both of us and won't believe I was not to blame. She keeps quoting something you once said to Dolly under circumstances described as similar—that no man kisses a girl if he knows it's really against her will. If you did say that, Mr. Wood, you're wrong. If a man wants to kiss a girl something in his psychology makes him feel sure she wants him to. ”

“ Durland said. "I think anyone—even a very just man like Uncle Anthony—would say that women can't think, at least not like men."
"Would he, indeed?" said Pearl. "Well, I don't know him; but he may be the kind of man who prefers inferior people of both sexes."
Durland, unable to believe she really thought this, looked wistfully into her face for a sign of relenting.
"Of course," he said, "you are very unusual. You must not judge other women by yourself."
"I was fifteenth in my class," said Pearl. "Quite stupid compared to the others; but even [Pg 81] I never had any trouble with algebra. ”

“ Pearl was nothing if not a partisan, and she was already completely on Antonia's side.
She and Antonia were supposed to bathe early so as to leave the two Conway bathhouses free for Mrs. Conway and Dolly when they appeared at a later and more fashionable hour. "Everything in our family is done for Dolly," said Antonia when she was finally dragged out of the water. "It makes me tired the way mother indulges every whim of hers." ”