“Ohh! Mother!” exclaimed Louise, “this gentleman- Mr. Freeman-says we have transgressed the law in letting Mrs. Bolton's account run up so high. We may be disgraced even-unless we follow his advice and directions.”
“He is in charge of her affairs now-and he will protect us against possible disclosures to father-and fix it for us to obtain lenient terms, provided we do whatever he has in mind for us. We have gotten into a dreadful mess, he says and probably only he can extricate us.”
“I know something about it, dear,” soothed Doris very gently. “Mr. Freeman is right, it seems. Our only hope is in submission to his suggestions-even though we suffer in our finer instincts and fail to understand the real necessity of all he will…”
“That blue gown.” she had said, just prior to his brief interview with Louise, “that gown was one of the last items charged to the girl. A hundred and sixty dollars!”
His eyes flashed under the impulse of a sudden and daring thought. “And what about the tan silk dress her mother is wearing?” he asked Rose.
“That was made here, too-and of course never paid for,” replied Rose regretfully. “It wouldn't surprise me, if apart from their hats and shoes and stockings, every single stitch on them came from my atelier.”
in the girl's lovely little face was an expression of wondering apprehension tinged with an certain relief-for was not this man going to save them from their difficulties if they followed his instructions fully.
“I think it looks well, too!” she acknowledged. “I'm so light of hair and my coloring is faint, so that this shade seems to set me off beautifully!”
He nodded approval. “And the workmanship is so very stylish.” he remarked. “May I see the lines-how it hangs — and how it is made? I have some thought that perhaps a blonde niece of mine would be pleased to have one just like it.”
“Ohh! mother,” she said protestingly. “You don't have to smooth me all over like that. Mr. Freeman can see quite well how the dress hangs-without your rubbing and pulling me everywhere. Why-I feel quite…”
“I feel just as if I were being massaged,” she concluded. “And you make me-project so-when you do that… every single curve I've got-my bosom and my… my… seat-”
“Since your curves seem to be ideal,” remarked the man, “you hardly need to worry over that. Is the gown well made in all other respects? Underneath as well as on the outside?”
“Mother!” half shrieked Louise. “You're uncovering me! You seem to forget that I haven't an underskirt on — just my… my undies!”
Doris had maintained a certain semblance of maternal composure but she squirmed strangely on her chair as, yielding to his tacit request to be shown the underside of the skirt, she so clumsily contrived to display to him a considerable extent of her daughter's lovely legs as well.
“Our daughters wear very little underneath their dress these days-even in winter,” she joked to Francis.
“Could that dress be, by any chance,” he said slowly, “a production of this establishment?”
Mother and daughter flushed and exchanged a quick glance. They were silent. He turned to Rose-sitting in the background.
“Yes, that is one of the articles charged, sir,” she said in a low voice.
“Then we'll regain this property at once,” he remarked sternly. “It is beyond all reason that this young lady should be so wonderfully clad at your expense. I am sorry. Miss Louise, but you will have to surrender that gown at once!”
“Ohh! But Mr. Freeman!” stammered Louise… as she clutched at her bosom as if threatened by a violent attack on her attire. “I-please… I have so little on underneath-as mother says. And I have nothing to wear home… if I must part with this!”
“You admit the injustice of your being so expensively clad when it is Mrs. Bolton's pocket which pays the bill?” he inquired coldly.
“Yes… y-yes!” she faltered. “But I'll work-I'll do anything-I can to pay…except tell father. I'll even go to my cousin Jack Belt and try to borrow the money!”
“You will not go to Jack,” quavered Doris agitatedly. “How can you think of approaching a man whom I forbade the house-because he thrust his head in at the bathroom door at a time when he knew you were there completely undressed. And he showed himself to you, too, under the pretence that he did not know you were looking-You most certainly cannot see him again!”
“Mother-ohh! How can y-you give such… intimate details about… m-me-before others?”
“Did this man, your cousin, see you entirely naked. Louise?” inquired Freeman interestedly.
“He… he did, yes-the horrid thing!” mourned the girl, flushing scarlet. “I was all undressed and stepping into the tub-and I heard a sound, so I turned around and… there he was-just gaping at m-me! I covered my… my bare-and screamed and mother came running!”
“I don't know,” observed Francis softly, “that he was so much to blame for wishing to see you unclad. You must be very lovely in that state-and no man could be blamed for contriving to…”
“Ohh! O-o-o-h!” gasped the confused and abashed girl looking at him with shamed eyes of the clearest, blue. “You could not defend this youth-he's twenty… if you knew more of his behaviour.” interposed Doris, coming to the rescue of her dismayed daughter.
“He actually had the temerity to display to this child his-male appendages… and in an excited state-an hour or so after this episode in the bathroom. It was then I ordered him from the house, though I had overlooked his previous fault on his plea that he did not know that Louise was in her bath.”
“But this lovely Louise is not exactly a child… at the age of nineteen,” said Francis mildly.
“And,” he continued, “Jack may have felt that turn about is fair play-and that since he had seen his lovely cousin in every detail, she was entitled to the same privilege with him.
“Ohhh… privilege;” exclaimed Doris. “How can you call it that?”
“In any event.” he said, “we seem to be straying from the business of the moment-which is the immediate delivery of this unpaid for gown to Mrs. Bolton-who will act as my agent in receiving it!”
“Louise! The dress if you please!” he added, looking at her uncompromisingly.
Louise gave a low cry of dismay and her mother sighed heavily as she moved uneasily in her chair.
“It's my prettiest street frock,” mourned the distracted girl, “and I don't know how-I can get home… without it. I have nothing else!”
“That will be attended to,” he promised.
“Then I'll just go into the next room-and take it off,” said Louise gloomily. “I could cry over it-I love it so very much…”
“Here and now-I said!” repeated Francis.
“But… good heavens-to take it off…. you're asking an indecency of me!” quavered Louise.
“Unfortunately for you-you are not here to have your feelings considered. You have incurred punishment… and you will receive it!” he told her firmly.
“Ohhh… mother!” wailed Louise imploringly.
“I fear, my darling… that you will have to obey him,” faltered Doris. “You see, he-Mr. Freeman-is in the position to enforce his orders.”
“But… but I have only-one other thing on-besides the dress,” stammered the girl. “How can I undress like that-before a man? Ohh… if you would only go outside sir, and let me turn the dress over to Mrs. Bolton — please, sir!”
“My patience is at an end,” be announced. “You have ten seconds, Louise, to be outside of that garment.”
He held his watch up before the vividly blushing girl, who merely sighed and trembled and wrung her hands… and then looked desperately at her mother for help.
“You will be sorry for this rebellion, Louise!” he said quietly, as he returned the watch to his pocket.
“Ohh… please he gentle-with her-a maiden!” wailed Doris distractedly. “I… I-if you have any decency for me after what has passed…”
“After what has passed between us. I suppose you want to say,” he said placidly. “Apropos of that-it might be as well to give your daughter some idea of how firmly I can act in case of need. Possibly she may be led to see the real uselessness of resistance-if you offer yourself as a sacrifice for her? Yes… I consent for the moment, to spend on you the indignation she has aroused!”