The Priceless Pearl

								

"You seem to me pretty fairly free."
Antonia laughed.
"That's funny," she said. "I mean it's funny that you said that exactly
the way Uncle Anthony talks--that gentle tone that makes you feel like
nothing at all. Do you like Uncle Anthony? Do you think he's handsome?"
"Yes, indeed I do," answered Pearl, with the modest enthusiasm which
she thought under the circumstances Augusta would have allowed herself.
"So do I," said Antonia. "So does Miss Wellington, whose mother has
the house next us. She took it before she knew Uncle Anthony was going
to be away all summer--at least that's what mother and I think. Miss
Wellington told me she thought him handsome and she said 'And you can
tell him I said so,' but I didn't--for rather a spiteful reason; I
thought she wanted me to."
"It sounds that way to me, too," said Pearl.
"I'm glad you like him," Antonia went on. "He likes you too. He
telephoned mother about you. He said he had found a pearl--wasn't that
funny?" It was funnier than Antonia knew. "So now mother always speaks
of you as the priceless pearl. Mother's rather amusing, like that.
He said you were not so much on looks--just pleasing, he said. But I
think you are perfectly beautiful. Do you think you're beautiful, Miss
Exeter?"
This was the first crisis. Pearl knew that if she said no Antonia would
distrust her honesty, and if she said yes it might be used against her.
So she compromised.
"I'll answer that question the day I leave," she said.
"I'll tell you something funny about that," said Antonia. "Perhaps I
oughtn't to, but I'm going to. Uncle Anthony made mother promise not to
send you away until he came back, no matter what happened; but mother
says she knows a way to get round that if the worst comes to the worst.
You see, I don't want to hurt your feelings; but we all felt it was
rather hard on us to have a governess at all in summer. Mother thinks
it's hard too. She says it's just one of Uncle Anthony's ideas. She
says a man can't take an interest in anything unless he thinks he's
running it. So she just lets him think he runs the family, and then
when he's away she does what she thinks best. This is our gate now.
What do you think of the house? We only rent it. There's Durland going
in for a swim before dinner. I wonder if he'd wait for us. Durland!
Durland!"
It was quite extraordinary the volume of sound that could issue from so
small a person as Antonia. She sprang out of the car over the closed
door and ran round the house toward the ocean, while Pearl entered the
front door alone.
A slim, gray-haired figure in delft blue came out of a neighboring room
and said "Good heavens, you are not Miss Exeter, are you?"
Pearl smiled her most winning smile.
"Won't I do?" she said.
But merriment did not seem quite in order. Mrs. Conway's manners were
perfect, but she was not going to begin by being any more friendly than
she could help.
She answered politely, "Oh, perfectly, I feel sure. Only you do not