And now, in her fencing skirts of black and her black stockings, she was exceedingly ornamental, with the severe lines of the plastron accenting the white throat and chin, and the scarlet heart blazing over her own little heart--unvexed by such details as love and lovers. Yes, unvexed; for she had about come to the conclusion that her father had frightened her more than was necessary; that the instrument had not really done its worst; in fact, that, although she had been very disobedient, she had had a rather narrow escape; and nothing more serious than paternal displeasure was likely to be visited upon her.
Which comforted her to an extent that brought a return of appetite; and she rang for luncheon, and ate it with the healthy nonchalance usually so characteristic of her and her sisters.
"Now," she reflected, "I'll have to wait an hour for my bath"--one of the inculcated principles of domestic hygiene. So, rising, she strolled across the gymnasium, casting about for something interesting to do.
She looked out of the back windows. In New York the view from back windows is not imposing.
Tiring of the inartistic prospect she sauntered out and downstairs to see what her maid might be about. Bowles was sewing; Sybilla looked on for a while with languid interest, then, realizing that a long day of punishment was before her, that she deserved it, and that she ought to perform some act of penance, started contritely for the library with resolute intentions toward Henry James.
As she entered she noticed that the bookshelves, reaching part way to the ceiling, were shrouded in sheets. Also she encountered a pair of sawhorses overlaid with boards, upon which were rolls of green flock paper, several pairs of shears, a bucket of paste, a large, flat brush, a knife and a T-square.
"The paper hanger man," she said. "He's gone to lunch. I'll have time to seize on Henry James and flee."
Now Henry James, like some other sacred conventions, was, in that library, a movable feast. Sometimes he stood neatly arranged on one shelf, sometimes on another. There was no counting on Henry.
Sybilla lifted the sheets from the face of one case and peered closer. Henry was not visible. She lifted the sheets from another case; no Henry; only G.P.R., in six dozen rakish volumes.
Sybilla peeped into a third case. Then a very unedifying thing occurred. Surely, surely, this was Sybilla's disobedient day. She saw a forbidden book glimmering in old, gilded leather--she saw its classic back turned mockingly toward her--the whole allure of the volume was impudent, dog- eared, devil-may-care-who-reads-me.
She took it out, replaced it, looked hard, hard for Henry, found him not, glanced sideways at the dog-eared one, took a step sideways.
"I'll just see where it was printed," she said to herself, drawing out the book and backing off hastily--so hastily that she came into collision with the sawhorse table, and the paste splashed out of the bucket.
But Sybilla paid no heed; she was examining the title page of old Dog- ear: a rather wonderful title page, printed in fascinating red and black with flourishes.
"I'll just see whether--" And the smooth, white fingers hesitated; but she had caught a glimpse of an ancient engraving on the next page--a very quaint one, that held her fascinated.
"I wonder----"
She turned the next page. The first paragraph of the famous classic began deliciously. After a few moments she laughed, adding to herself: "I can't see what harm----"
There was no harm. Her father had meant another book; but Sybilla did not know that.
"I'll just glance through it to--to--be sure that I mustn't read it."
She laid one hand on the paper hanger's table, vaulted up sideways, and, seated on the top, legs swinging, buried herself in the book, unconscious that the overturned paste was slowly fastening her to the spattered table top.
An hour later, hearing steps on the landing, she sprang--that is, she went through all the graceful motions of springing lightly to the floor. But she had not budged an inch. No Gorgon's head could have consigned her to immovability more hopeless.
Restrained from freedom by she knew not what, she made one frantic and demoralized effort--and sank back in terror at the ominous tearing sound.
She was glued irrevocably to the table.
[Illustration]
XIII
THE CROWN PRINCE
_Wherein the Green Mouse Squeaks_
A few minutes later the paper hanging young man entered, swinging an empty dinner pail and halted in polite surprise before a flushed young girl in full fencing costume, who sat on his operating table, feet crossed, convulsively hugging a book to the scarlet heart embroidered on her plastron.
"I--hope you don't mind my sitting here," she managed to say. "I wanted to watch the work."
"By all means," he said pleasantly. "Let me get you a chair----"
"No, thank you. I had rather sit th-this way. Please begin and don't mind if I watch you."
The young man appeared to be perplexed.
"I'm afraid," he ventured, "that I may require that table for cutting and----"
"Please--if you don't mind--begin to paste. I am in-intensely interested in p-pasting--I like to w-watch p-paper p-pasted on a w-wall."
Her small teeth chattered in spite of her; she strove to control her voice--strove to collect her wits.
He stood irresolute, rather astonished, too.
"I'm sorry," he said, "but----"
"_Please_ paste; won't you?" she asked.
"Why, I've got to have that table to paste on----"
"Then d-don't think of pasting. D-do anything else; cut out some strips. I am so interested in watching p-paper hangers cut out things--"
"But I need the table for that, too----"
"No, you don't. You can't be a--a very skillful w-workman if you've got to use your table for everything----"
[Illustration: "'I'm afraid', he ventured 'that I may require that table for cutting.'"]
He laughed. "You are quite right; I'm not a skillful paper hanger."
"Then," she said, "I am surprised that you came here to paper our library, and I think you had better go back to your shop and send a competent man."
He laughed again. The paper hanger's youthful face was curiously attractive when he laughed--and otherwise, more or less.
He said: "I came to paper this library because Mr. Carr was in a hurry, and I was the only man in the shop. I didn't want to come. But they made me.... I think they're rather afraid of Mr. Carr in the shop.... And this work _must_ be finished today."
She did not know what to say; anything to keep him away from the table until she could think clearly.
"W-why didn't you want to come?" she asked, fighting for time. "You said you didn't want to come, didn't you?"
"Because," he said, smiling, "I don't like to hang wall paper."
"But if you are a paper hanger by trade----"
"I suppose you think me a real paper hanger?"
She was cautiously endeavoring to free one edge of her skirt; she nodded absently, then subsided, crimsoning, as a faint tearing of cloth sounded.
"Go on," she said hurriedly; "the story of your career is _so_ interesting. You say you adore paper hanging----"
"No, I don't," he returned, chagrined. "I say I hate it."
"Why do you do it, then?"
"Because my father thinks that every son of his who finishes college ought to be disciplined by learning a trade before he enters a profession. My oldest brother, De Courcy, learned to be a blacksmith; my next brother, Algernon, ran a bakery; and since I left Harvard I've been slapping sheets of paper on people's walls----"
"Harvard?" she repeated, bewildered.
"Yes; I was 1907."
"_You!_"
He looked down at his white overalls, smiling.
"Does that astonish you, Miss Carr?--you are Miss Carr, I suppose----"
"Sybilla--yes--we're--we're triplets," she stammered.
"The beauti--the--the Carr triplets! And you are one of them?" he exclaimed, delighted.
"Yes." Still bewildered, she sat there, looking at him. How extraordinary! How strange to find a Harvard man pasting paper! Dire misgivings flashed up within her.
"Who are you?" she asked tremulously. "Would you mind telling me your name. It--it isn't--_George!_"
He looked up in pleased surprise:
"So you know who I am?"
"N-no. But--it isn't George--is it?"
"Why, yes----"
"O-h!" she breathed. A sense of swimming faintness enveloped her: she swayed; but an unmistakable ripping noise brought her suddenly to herself.
"I am afraid you are tearing your skirt somehow," he said anxiously. "Let me----"
"No!"
The desperation of the negative approached violence, and he involuntarily stepped back.
For a moment they faced one another; the flush died out on her cheeks.
"If," she said, "your name actually is George, this--this is the most-- the most terrible punishment--" She closed her eyes with her fingers as though to shut out some monstrous vision.
"What," asked the amazed young man, "has my name to do with----"
Her hands dropped from her eyes; with horror she surveyed him, his paste- spattered overalls, his dingy white cap, his dinner pail.
"I--I _won't_ marry you!" she stammered in white desperation. "I _won't!_ If you're not a paper hanger you look like one! I don't care whether you're a Harvard man or not--whether you're playing at paper hanging or not--whether your name is George or not--I won't marry you--I won't! I _won't!_"