Her Infinite Variety

Brand Whitlock

Brand Whitlock

Her Infinite Variety

To My Mother

I

AMELIA came running eagerly down the wide stairs, and though she was smiling with the joy of Vernon’s coming, she stopped on the bottom step long enough to shake out the skirt of the new spring gown she wore, with a manner that told she had it on that evening for the first time. Vernon hastened to meet her, and it was not until he had kissed her and released her from his embrace that she saw the dressing-case he had set down in the hall.

“What’s that for?” she asked in alarm. Her smile faded suddenly, leaving her face wholly serious.

“I have to go back to-night,” he replied, almost guiltily.

“To-night!”

“Yes; I must be in Springfield in the morning.”

“But what about the dinner?”

“Well,” he began, helplessly, “I guess you’ll have to get somebody in my place.”

Amelia stopped and looked at him in amazement.

“I thought the Senate never met Mondays until five o’clock in the afternoon?” she said.

“It doesn’t, usually; but I had a telegram from Porter an hour ago; there’s to be a conference in the morning.”

They started toward the drawing-room. Amelia was pouting in her disappointment.

“I knew something would spoil it,” she said, fatalistically. And then she added, presently: “I thought that Monday afternoon sessions never lasted longer than a minute. You never went down before until Monday night.”

“I know, dear,” said Vernon, apologetically, “but now that the session is nearing its close, we’re busier than we have been.”

“Can’t you wire Mr. Porter and get him to let you off?” she asked.

Vernon laughed.

“He isn’t my master,” he replied.

“Well, he acts like it,” she retorted, and then as if she had suddenly hit upon an unanswerable argument she went on: “If that’s so why do you pay any attention to his telegram?”

“It isn’t he, dear,” Vernon explained, “it’s the party. We are to have a very important conference to consider a situation that has just arisen. I must not miss it.”

“Well, it ruins my dinner, that’s all,” she said, helplessly. “I wanted you here.”

Vernon had come up from Springfield as usual for the week’s end adjournment, and Amelia had counted on his waiting over, as he always did, for the Monday night train, before going back to his duties in the Senate. More than all, she had counted on him for a dinner she had arranged for Monday evening.

“What time does your train leave?” she asked, in the voice of one who succumbs finally to a hopeless situation.

“Eleven twenty,” he said. “But I brought my luggage over with me, so I could start from here at the last minute. I’ll go over to the Twenty-third Street station and catch it there.”

Amelia had had the deep chair Vernon liked so well wheeled into the mellow circle of the light that fell from a tall lamp. The lamp gave the only light in the room, and the room appeared vast in the dimness; an effect somehow aided by the chill that was on it, as if the fires of the Ansley house had been allowed to die down in an eager pretense of spring. It was spring, but spring in Chicago. Sunday morning had been bright and the lake had sparkled blue in the warm wind that came up somewhere from the southwest, but by night the wind had wheeled around, and the lake resumed its normal cold and menacing mood. As Vernon sank into the chair he caught a narrow glimpse of the boulevard between the curtains of the large window; in the brilliant light of a street lamp he could see a cold rain slanting down on to the asphalt.

“How much longer is this legislature to last, anyway?” Amelia demanded, as she arranged herself in the low chair before him.

“Three weeks,” Vernon replied.

“Three—weeks—more!” The girl drew the words out.

“Yes, only three weeks,” said Vernon. “And then we adjourn sine die. The joint resolution fixes the date for June second.”

Amelia said nothing. She was usually disturbed when Vernon began to speak of his joint r