The club-house was, after all, only a means to a very much
more important end of his own.
Rajah Nehal Singh of course accepted the invitation sent him, and
scarcely a week passed before the eventful evening arrived toward
which more than one looked forward with eager anticipation--not least
Mrs. Cary, who saw in every large entertainment a fresh opportunity
for Beatrice to carry out her own particular campaign. It was
therefore, as Mrs. Cary angrily declared, a fresh dispensation of an
unfriendly Providence that on the very same day Beatrice fell ill.
What malady had her in its clutches was more than her distracted and
aggrieved mother could say. She sat before her writing-table, playing
idly with a curiously cut stone, and appeared the picture of health.
Yet she was ill--she repeated it obstinately and without variation a
dozen times in response to Mrs. Cary's persistent protests.
"You don't _look_ ill," Mrs. Cary exclaimed in exasperation as,
arrayed in her newest wonder from Paris, she came to say good-by. "I
can't think what's the matter with you, and you won't explain. Have
you got a pain anywhere?--Have you a headache? For goodness' sake, say
something, child!"
Beatrice looked at her mother calmly, and a curious mixture of
bitterness and amusement crept into her expression as her eyes
wandered over the bulk in mauve satin to the red face with the
indignant little eyes.
"What do you want me to say?" she asked.
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