The suddenness of it was like a blow. Lloyd Pryor actually gasped; his
presence of mind so entirely deserted him, that before he knew it, he
had lied--and no one knew better than Lloyd Pryor that it is a mistake
to lie hurriedly.
"I--I don't know! Never heard of either of them."
His confusion was so obvious that his daughter gave him a surprised
look. "But I'm told you stay at Mrs. Richie's house, in Old Chester,"
she said laughing.
"What are you talking about!"
"Why, father," she said blankly; his irritation was very
disconcerting.
"I tell you I never heard of such a person!" he repeated sharply; and
then realized what he had done. "Damn it, what did I lie for?" he said
to himself, angrily; and he began to try to get out of it: "Old
Chester? Oh, yes; I do remember. It's somewhere near Mercer, I
believe. But I never went there in my life." Then he added in his own
mind, "Confound it, I've done it again! What the devil has happened?
Who has told her?" Aloud, he asked where she had heard of Old Chester.
She began to tell him about a little boy, who said--"it was too
funny!" she interrupted herself, smiling--"who said that you were
'Mrs. Richie's brother,' and you stayed at her house in Old Chester,
and--"
"Perfect nonsense!" he broke in. "He mistook me for some one else, I
suppose."
"Oh, of course," she agreed, laughing; upon which Mr. Pryor changed
the subject by saying that he must look over some papers. "Don't talk
now, dear," he said.
Alice subsided into her novel; but after a while she put the book
down. No; the little boy had not mistaken him for somebody else; "he's
Mr. Pryor," the child had said. But, of course, the rest was all a
funny mistake. She took the book up again, but as she read, she began
to frown. Old Chester: Where had she heard of Old Chester? Then she
remembered. A gentleman who came to call,--King? Yes; that was his
name; Dr. King. He said he had come from Old Chester. And he had
spoken of somebody--now, who was it? Oh, yes, Richie; Mrs. Richie. And
once last spring when her father went to Mercer he said he was going
to Old Chester; yet now he said he had never heard of the place.--Why!
it almost seemed as if she had blundered upon a secret! Her uneasy
smile faded involuntarily into delicate disgust; not because the
nature of the secret occurred to her, but because secrecy in itself
was repugnant to her, as it is to all nobler minds. She said to
herself, quickly, that her father had forgotten Old Chester, that was
all. Of course, he had forgotten it!--or else--She did not allow
herself to reach the alternative which his confusion so inevitably
suggested:--secrecy, protected by a lie. In the recoil from it she was
plunged into remorse for a suspicion which she had not even
entertained. Truth was so much to this young creature, that even the
shadow of an untruth gave her a sense of uneasiness which she could
not banish. She looked furtively at her father, sorting out some
papers, his lips compressed, his eyebrows drawn into a heavy frown,
and assured herself that she was a wicked girl to have wondered, even
for a minute, whether he was perfectly frank. He! Her ideal of every
virtue! And besides, why should he not be frank? It was absurd as well
as wicked to have that uneasy feeling. "I am ashamed of myself!" she
declared hotly, and took up her novel....