Presently he came and we were repaid for waiting. When I had mentioned him in the afternoon as being a possible Beau Brummel I little realized what an inadequate term I had employed. Beau Brummel with all his diamond-studded snuff-boxes was never rigged up to compare with Doctor Simmons. In stature he was tall, in demeanor grave, in color red-headed. His trousers were very light and his shirt was very pink, while a large diamond stud gleamed from his glossy bosom. Two other great stones were set in rings. His shoes were tan, but his hosiery was not; and his broad straw hat had birds embroidered in the band.
Neva received him nervously, her voice high-pitched and unnatural. Mrs. Sullivan bade us sit still while she tiptoed around through the back hall and up close to the parlor door, where she couldoverhear the announcement of his mission. Her maternal anxiety justified this.
We sat an interminable time, it seemed, listening to Miss Delia Badger's low-toned conversation, which she felt must for politeness' sake be kept up; but there was no light in the room, and we were thus saved the pain of looking at her parti-colored hair, so it might have been worse.
After a long time Mrs. Sullivan came in. We could not see her face, but her voice had the most doleful droop I had ever detected in its depths, and she collapsed into the nearest chair.
"He's a fit doctor," she announced briefly, after a moment's strained silence.
"Awhat?"
"A fit doctor. He cures fits up at his hospital in the city. Somebody from here wrote him that Nevar had done had one. He'll give a gold-trimmed fountain pen for ever' name of a fitified person you'll send him."
"How unkind of the one who wrote him about Neva!" mother exclaimed in an indignant whisper, but I was unable to speak.
"'Twas some of them mean girls in the choir," Mrs. Sullivan pronounced lifelessly. "They're alwaysso jealous of Nevar having the most beaus and the prettiest dresses."
"Well, it's a shame!" mother repeated wrathfully.
"What I'm worrying aboutnowis how to git 'im off without Tim killing 'im," Neva's mother continued, still in an apathetic whisper. "If he could catch the nine o'clock car out o' town to-night he would be safe, but it's mighty near that time now. If he was to leave this early and Tim out there painting he would stop 'im and ask 'im his business. Then there would be a killing on the spot."
It was not clear whether Tim would kill Doctor Simmons for curing fits or Doctor Simmons would kill Tim for painting the nasturtium frame. But mother was all anxiety to avert either tragedy.
"Well, we'll run right on home this minute," she said, rising hurriedly, and her inspiration was so sudden and so happy that she forgot to whisper, "and ask Mr. Sullivan to go with us. Then Mr. Fielding shall make him a mint julep—while you explain to the fit doctor that he would better make haste back to his hospital."
There were grateful whisperings from Mrs. Sullivan and her sister.
"And you'll have to use a lantern to wave the cardown," mother turned back a moment to caution them, "for it's so dark they'll never see you if you don't."
But Mrs. Sullivan did not wait to tamper with the chimney of a lantern. The smoky little lamp had been placed, still lighted, upon the edge of the porch when mother had mentioned mint julep to Mr. Sullivan. His wife caught it up and bore it along bravely after we had crossed the road and entered the thick shade of our walk. She was closely followed by a very homesick physician, whose one desire was to leave this quiet little town, and an outraged but still admiring Neva.
As we gained our front porch mother whispered a quick word into father's ear and he hospitably bade Mr. Sullivan follow him into the dining-room, while she and I quickly turned and fled back down the walk to the front gate.
Yes, they had him safely down at the car track, and in a very brief while the car came along. Mrs. Sullivan made spasmodic little signals with the lamp, which brought the car to a standstill, and also brought forth a thousand rainbow gleams from the jewels in her hair. Doctor Simmons stepped upon that running-board with all the alacrity of a newsboywith a bundle of "extras." He deposited his package of professional literature upon the seat in front of him, then turned and gravely lifted his hat to the ladies.
"Thank goodness!" mother said with a sigh of genuine relief as we watched the car pull out. Then she turned to me and for the first time that evening I could discern a smile in her voice.
"Ann," she said, trying to speak seriously, "when I see other women's daughters I know that I have much to be thankful for. Youarea star-gazer and a poor cook, but, oh dear—you don't have beaus from the city."
"Touch wood before you boast," but she stopped and caught me by the arm.
"What do you mean, honey?" she questioned. "Has Alfred—"
"No, indeed. I don't mean anything except that I am at the age of Eve and—very hopeful."
"Well, youknowwhat we all think of Alfred," she said, then stopped still at the lower step and broke off a dead twig from a rosebush near by. A shaft of light was shining from the hall and I could see that her face was very earnest. It was the first time in my life she had ever spoken to me of lovers.
"And I think everything of Alfred that you do—and more," I assured her, "but I am not in love with him. I might be—if—under other circumstances——I might be, but not now!"
She deliberately lingered at the steps, and we heard pleasant sounds coming from the dining-room.
"Eunice and I fancied that Mr. Chalmers looked at you—er, rather attentively the other day," she ventured timidly, as if to try to draw me out, yet dreading a little the answer I might make.
"That might have been imagination," I parried.
"But—we also imagined thatyoulooked at him."
"Well," I answered with a laugh which I hoped would sound light, "haven't you just said that I am astar-gazer?"
With this admission I ran away up-stairs.
Yes, I had looked at him. And since then it seemed that there had been nothing for my eyes to rest upon that did not bear the impress of his face.
He had stayed through that long, perfect day, and had left when the cool, white night was at the zenith of its beauty. The cool, white night which, alas, had to be followed by a morning after! I had never, until then, felt this way about the morning, for it has always been my favorite time of day, my onlythought upon arising being an eager craving for the sunshine. But then, I had never known until that time just what an exquisite thing night could be.
There is a little sepia copy of the Sistine Madonna hanging across the room from my bed where I can see it the first thing when I awake every morning; and, on bright days there is a golden bar of sunlight which comes traveling in and across the ceiling until it falls upon the picture. I lie still and watch it until it has reached the Virgin's heart, then I get up and open all the windows to the light. It serves me in place of a clock, and much better, for it is true as to time, and it has no unpleasant way of striking a sudden and disenchanting note which breaks in upon my dreams.
My warning little ray of sunshine was casting a spot of intense light directly upon the Mother's heart as I turned and glanced toward it for the first time on the morning after Richard Chalmers' visit, but I was so tired that I lay still until it had traversed the entire length of the wall and settled for a moment upon the floor. I was not enjoying that stretching, smiling, lazy luxuriance which I sometimes indulge in after a too brief sleep. That is a pleasant sort of lingering upon the threshold of the day, butthis other feeling of mine was the deadening reaction which comes after a period of over-tension.
"You are a nervous freak," I said disgustedly as I finally jumped out of bed after a soft suggestion from Dilsey that I should find my bath prepared if I could only be induced to get up and go seek it. I crossed the convent-like little apartment which it has pleased my fancy to fix up as a sleeping-chamber and made for a mirror in the adjoining room, for there is "some little luxury there"—flowered curtains and Battenburg table-covers and punched score-cards. I wished to see if there were outward and visible signs of the change which was causing such inward tumult.
"You are a freak," I repeated as I looked in the mirror and noticed that my eyes appeared heavy and tired; and my tongue felt as thick as a Sunday morning newspaper. "It's a pity you can't keep your emotions stopped up in a vial and portion them out with a medicine-dropper—instead ofsoakingyourself in them!"
Dilsey had left the water running, as she has learned to do on mornings when I am unusually lazy, for no woman who has a domestic heart in her bosom can lie abed and run the risk of the tub overflowingand making a mess of the bath-room floor. I slipped my feet into some flip-flop Turkish slippers—if Turkish women have to wear such footgear as this I don't blame them for sitting still most of the time; but then they have the comfort of trousers, poor dears!—and went to turn off the water.
"Of course he thinks you are an absurd young person who openly tried to make eyes at him," I mused, as I gave a savage twist that stopped that provoking sound of water wasting.
When I had imagined, upon first seeing him, that Richard Chalmers had warring elements in his character I was only saying about him the things I knew to be true of myself. "He does bad things sometimes, but he never enjoys doing them, because he has a conscience that will not let him." This is my own disposition, and I fancied that it might be his, because his eyes bear a dissatisfied look, as if he did not come up to his own ideal of himself.
Alfred Morgan is entirely different. I do not believe that he ever had a morbid regret in his life. In his work he is fanatically conscientious, doing the best he can and knowing that his best is as good as any other man's, for he does not attempt anything unless he is sure of his qualifications. This does notimply any lack of grief and worry when a patient "goes to the bad." Hedoesgrieve, sitting with his head between his hands, while his black hair is ruffled up like a shoe-brush straight across his forehead. Sometimes he softly repeats, "Well, I'll swear! Well, I'llswear!"—in a baffled, helpless sort of way, but you know that he has not been helpless where any other man would have been potent. And he never has the soul-eating remorse which follows the knowledge that one might have done better.
As to Alfred'slife, I imagine that it is kept in the same condition of fitness that his body is—clean and wholesome, yet full-blooded and entirely normal. If he should meet red-robed Folly on a pleasant highway he would undoubtedly linger a while, taking off his hat politely and addressing her as Human Nature. He would shake hands good-temperedly as he left her and promise to come again some time when his business engagements would permit. But he would never give the matter another thought probably.
Richard Chalmers' cold face proclaims an asceticism that would call the prettily dressed little Folly "Sin," yet I fancy that he would linger—much longer than Alfred, no doubt—and leave the gayfairy with a frown on his face, which would remain until the next morning, when he would throw his bootjack at his valet.
Where was I? Oh, yes, I had just turned the water off! It's a good thing I did, too, before this digression, or the house would have been flooded.
Again, what I have said of Richard Chalmers is also true of myself. I had lingered on the pleasant highways with a delightful Folly all day yesterday, which seemed to me in the cold light of day this morning a sort of Sin. A sin against good sense, I concluded, or against good taste,especiallyif he noticed.
"A horridyoungidiot! Of course that's what he considered you were." I kept torturing myself with these thoughts until others more agonizing still came to torment me. Suppose he had not thought of me at all!
The dash of the cold water restored me to something much more nearly like my normal self, and by the time I had combed the tangles out of my hair and spoken to a pair of redbirds which live in a tree right by my window I was feeling poetry again. A shower of scattered cigar ashes, which Dilsey had not yet swept off the front porch, with two or threered-and-gold bands which I had noticed on his cigars, set me singing.
"You're not an idiot at all, Ann," I commented, as I looked about to make sure that no one was near, then grabbed up one of these red-and-gold bands. "Nowonderyou have lost your head over him, for he is perfectly beautiful, and you always did get intoxicated on beautiful things.—And ifhewasn't impressed too, his eyes were lying! No, they could not lie, because they are too lovely!"
I knew that the family would all be talking about him at the breakfast-table, which I found to be true, and they were so absorbed in their talk that they all, except mother, gave me a perfunctory greeting as I came in. Strange to say, they were not talking about his good looks.
"Well, he's had occasion to study the question in all its phases," Rufe kept on with the subject at hand as I slid into my chair and gave myself up to the charms of a breakfast food. "He's studied it in nearly every land. He spent a part of last year in—"
"I think one of the delights of wide travel is to be able to pronounce names of obscure places in such a way that stay-at-homes won't know what you'retalking about," Cousin Eunice said, looking toward mother and me. She had not intended interrupting the masculine conversation, but Rufe stopped and listened to what she had to say, which proves that he is a model husband, I think—"Did you notice how he called Peru 'Payrhu' last night? Of course he's been there."
"I noticed the new-fangled way he had with several of his words," father said, a bit drily. "He differentiated between 'egoist' and 'egotist.' He seems to have beenthere, too."
"Surely," Rufe coincided so willingly that I was amazed. "But the quality of egotism possessed by this fellow is not the cheap, objectionable kind. He simply has unlimited faith in himself, and an unlimited ability of making other people do what he wants them to do."
"A tyrant, then?" father inquired with a half-smile at Rufe's enthusiasm.
"Not at all—a governor."
"Well, who is he and where did he come from?" mother asked, coming into the discussion in an abstracted sort of fashion. "I never heard of him until the last few months."
Then followed a long discourse concerning RichardChalmers' past life, and his qualifications for the office which he might be called upon to fill—all of which fell like diamonds and rubies from their lips, for it was all creditable to him.
The look of strength, which had told its own story the first time I had ever seen him, and which had since then held me in the spell of a fascinated memory—it was all true, then! As I listened to the story of how the man had, by sheer strength and personality, raised himself from being simply a well-thought-of young lawyer, with a good deal of inherited wealth, to his present position in the minds of the state's best politicians, I felt that he must possess that steel-clad, relentless, yet necessary attribute—power.
Now, I revere power, whether in man, or beast, or automobile.
"Next to marrying it, the worst way on earth for a man to get money is to inherit it," father said, apropos of the story we had just heard. "It's bad for the man, and it's bad for the money."
We all laughed a little and agreed with father, then Rufe became aware of my presence for the first time.
"And Mistress Ann has not had a word to sayupon this interesting subject," he said chaffingly, looking around as if he had not seen me before, which in truth he had not, for he had been so absorbed when I came in that he merely nodded a "good morning" without detaching his mind from his discussion. "He was so visibly impressed, too."
"Shut up, Rufe—teasing her," Cousin Eunice commanded after she had looked at my face.
"I swear I wasn't teasing," he insisted more soberly. "I don't believe Chalmers looks at a woman once a year—he hasn't time for them, and besides, he's a cold-blooded devil—but he looked at Ann many times throughout the course of the day, to say naught of 'toting' home a mud-turtle for her dear sake. Then when he was leaving last night he asked me again whether the Fieldings were related to me or to my wife."
"Did you tell him the truth or did you take the credit to yourself?" I inquired sarcastically.
"No, I confessed that the beauteous blossom springs from the same tree that produced that perfect flower, Mrs. Clayborne. But I told him that the fact of my having 'raised' you invested you with a 'dearness not your due'—from blood ties alone."
"Well, she will have the honor of being looked atby him a great many times this fall, when she goes home with us," Cousin Eunice said, then turning to mother she added: "And she will need abushelof pretty clothes, Aunt Mary."
"I want one black dress, with a spangled yoke," I hastily put in, but was interrupted by little shrieks of disapproval from the two. "I—thought I'd have to look kind ofold," I wound up, as they regarded me with amused surprise.
After breakfast was over Cousin Eunice gathered up her tablet and pencil and nodded for me to come with her.
"I want to look at your face as I write," she explained with a sympathetic smile, "for I am hopelessly stupid and commonplace. I can't even think of a surname for my hero that isn't already the name of an automobile."
ALFRED
Cousin Eunice's new house in the city, which is really a very old house with the addition of all the wires and pipes and hardwood trimmings which we think we can't live without these days, is a love of a place. They bought it for the height of the ceilings and the size of the rooms, where every member of the family can spread out like a fried egg. But its especial glory is the drawing-room, a long, stately apartment all tricked out in the deepest, wild-woodiest green.
The walls and hangings are of the hue that our Mother Nature loves best, while the antique furniture is the color of chestnuts at Hallowe'en. There are dark-toned pedestals at intervals, holding jars of ferns, and the entire room presents such a perfect reproduction of a shady nook in the woods that Rufe declared at first he dared not venture into it, for fear of being snake-bitten.
There is a big leather chair over in one secluded corner, a chair which will easily hold the entire Clayborne family, and, on nights when there is no company and they are in a sentimental mood, the married lovers pretend that the room is the ravine in which they did their courting, and that the big chair is the old gray rock they were sitting on when he proposed to her.
This is a delightful make-believe—for them. Usually Waterloo and I are thrown upon each other for companionship, if it is late in the evening and Grapefruit has gone home.
He often begs for music, which I am always glad to furnish, or would be if his taste were not so very pronounced and so limited, and does not by any means include my favorite classics.
"You play 'Ditsie,' and I'll play 'Little Ditsie,'" his baby voice suggests, as he finds his French harp and blows a violent accompaniment. But if I tire of this and my fingers wander off into the mournful notes of theMisererefromIl Trovatore(another love of my youth) his harp and the corners of his mouth drop simultaneously, and he implores me not to play that "poor song."
This has not happened very many times, however,for there is nearly always somebody here. The Gordons frequently, and sometimes Alfred. They never come together, for whenever Doctor Gordon goes out anywhere at night Alfred has to stay at home and attend to the calls that come in. This is what a "cub" is for; then, too, it gives the Gordons a better chance to talk about him, which they take as much pleasure in doing as if he were their own dear son.
It is amazing how much they all think of Alfred. Not amazing, certainly, in any sense that he is not worthy of all the affection they bestow upon him, but I believe that it is seldom a girl has a young man thrown at her head sounanimouslyas I have Alfred thrown at me by our loving friends.
If he threw himself I should die, but he never does.
He is frank, and loyal, and sober-sided; just a little merry with me now and then, but for the most part going his even-tenored way and doing his work without any more fuss and splutter than—a fireless cooker. He never talks about what he is going to do, although his eyes are so deep and brown that I feel sure he is a dreamer.
He is the kind of man who seems to walk, withdeliberate yet sure step, into the things he wants. This denotes, of course, that he has sat up late many nights, smoothing out rough places in the road, so that his course might be dignified and steady when he gets ready to run it.
And, if Solomon—or whoever it was—told the truth about silence being golden, then Alfred Morgan is sinfully rich. He is timid, too, around women—wellwomen, I mean; and I don't believe he would ever have grown so fond of me if he had not first known me at an age when I wore such plain linen blouses and soft silk ties you couldn't tell whether I was a boy or girl.
Even after my dresses began to sweep the ground I think he still thought of me as a boy. "You're a good little chap," he would say to me occasionally when I had done something for his comfort or pleasure; and I so entirely consideredhima boy in spite of those six years between us that I seldom felt to see how my hair was arranged when I would hear his footsteps approaching.
Then, one day I had a rude shock about Alfred's degree of manhood.
Ann Lisbeth and I were in his private office waiting for Doctor Gordon to get through with a stringof patients which was overflowing the reception-room, and write out a check for her to take on a shopping excursion. (Things have changed with them since the days of their early married life, when Ann Lisbeth got a new dress only once a year; and then had to have it made by somebody who was owing her husband for a baby or a spell of measles.)
There was plenty of space in Alfred's room, poor boy, and I was sitting in front of his desk, idly fingering some papers and journals lying around in scattered confusion.
My attention was arrested presently by a small, oblong blotting-pad, with his name, Doctor Alfred Morgan, printed on the celluloid cover. The drug firms of the city sent such things out to all the doctors occasionally, but this was a particularly pretty one, with a little raised medallion on it—a picture of a stately stork approaching a cheery little cottage, with the fat, rosy, inevitable burden in his bill. The moon and stars were shining as they never shone on sea nor land, and there was a comfortable glow coming from the cottage windows, a glow of welcome, it seemed.
It was a happy-looking little picture, but it brought a curious feeling of uneasiness to my mind.
"Ann Lisbeth," I called, loud enough to cause her to look up from the magazine she was reading, yet not so loud as to be heard by Alfred, who was in the next room making a blood count. "Do you suppose they let anybody as young as Alfred dothis?" I held up the picture.
"Oh, my goodness," she laughed, looking not so much at the picture as at my horrified face. "Young!Why, he has two pairs of twinsnamedfor him, besides a little girl whose happy parents are so fond of him that they made him name her. Her name is Ann Morgan."
"The Ann is foryou," I cried, my face flushing.
"Nay, for you," she insisted, still laughing so that Alfred heard her and came in to see what it was that was so funny.
"Some of Ann's nonsense," she explained, and I slapped the blotter into my purse before he turned and looked at me.
After that I naturally began to treat Alfred with a good deal more respect, which he never seemed to notice.
It was about this time that he began finding a "good class" of patients who were trusting enough or reckless enough to let him operate on them; patientswho remembered his work at the hospital, or who were willing to take Doctor Gordon's word for it when he assured them that Morgan could do the job as well as he himself. Of course this last happened only when there was an emergency case that Doctor Gordon could not attend to, or an out-of-town call that promised to have so little compensation that the elder doctor felt that he would not be justified in leaving the city for it.
And then it was that perhaps some old six-cylinder surgeon who happened to see the operation would go away and remark that he always knew Morgan was going to make good, for, by George! the fellow handled the knife like a veteran!
These stories never failed to bring a thrill of satisfaction to my breast, for Alfred is my old chum, and I have already mentioned in here my reverence for power.
Jean Everett likes Alfred almost as much as I do, and reads me long lectures upon the idiocy of my course. She religiously invites him out to her house when I am spending the week-end there and makes me dress up in absurdly coquettish things, in view of the fact that he has possibly seen me for the past seven days in the plainest of tailored clothes.
Jean has not grown up to be a beauty, that is, not a beauty that could be marked off by rule, but she has that indefinable something about her exquisite get-up which makes you suspect that all her lingerie is stitched with thread number 120. So dainty is she in her pretty blue frocks that a poetic he-cozen of hers calls her a Wedgwood girl, but Guilford calls her his twenty-two carat girl, because her heart is as golden as her hair.
I have been in the city only a little while—if I take the calendar's word for it; but it has seemed long to me, for the season of the year is that when everything is very dull. All the people who have country homes are reluctantly bidding them good-by and the signs of fall cleaning are disfiguring all the city homes. The theaters are publishing long lists of attractions which are coming later on, but now there is nothing.
The only politicians I have seen I have met accidentally up at theTimesoffice—and they are all old, and wear long frock coats,—and look as if they chewed tobacco.
So, as I promised in the first chapter that I was not going to bother you with daily details and venison pasties, I suppose I shall have to close this chapterwithout recordingonething of interest. I can assure you, however, that you do not regret the dullness of ithalfso much as I do.
But hold! Shall I forget Neva? Self-centered thing that I am! Because the last three weeks have been dreary and barren to me shall I not rejoice in the happiness of some one else?
Among the other unimportant things which I have done since coming up to the city I have helped Neva get installed in a boarding-school for young ladies. An expensive place, it is, where for a certain unnaturally large sum each year they teach you to broaden your a's, sharpen your eyes, and loath your home surroundings for ever afterward.
The matter had been under discussion for some days before I left home, and I set forth the pros and especially theconsto Mrs. Sullivan. But the humiliation of the fit doctor's visit was fresh and galling; and Neva's boarding-school experience would more than turn her rival's triumph into Dead Sea fruit. She must be entered as a student at the beautifully named college.
They came up together a week before time for the school to open, Neva and her mother, so that they could learn their way about the city a little andalso buy Neva some new music and a supply of winter clothes.
Now, Neva's songs, while new and silly, are sung in her buoyant young voice with so much gusto on the caressing words that they are a kind of actual music; a joyous sort of wholesome music, like the sound of the postman's whistle on a sunshiny morning, when you know that he is bringing you a love-letter! There goes my imagination again, for I never had a love-letter in my life! Not even a post-card, and it's beenthree weeks. Possibly dignified people do not write post-cards! Especially gubernatorial timber!
Now, what started this digression? Oh, yes, Neva's silly songs which she bought while she was up here those few days before school commenced. I started out to say that they did not seem at all silly to me this time. I actually caught myself singing them over and over again and found considerable beauty in one that was a plea to some hardhearted beloved to make "ev'ry dream come true."
Yes, I was delighted with Neva's new songs, and Neva was delighted with everything she saw in the city: with the pure linen shirt-waists marked down to one dollar; with the vast, dim cathedral which wewould drop into to enjoy its solemn beauty nearly every time we were near it, after I found that Neva responded to its appeal; she admired the Egyptian mummies in the museum—the terrified delight of my early years; but she found the greatest joy in watching the fire-engines at work.
Mrs. Sullivan remained strictly at home after her first day of tramping the city streets, which she declared "was the death o' her feet," so that Neva's bubbling accounts of the sights seen, when she would return to their hotel at night and try to cheer her mother up with her lively recitals, were by no means the least enjoyable part of the day's program.
"Oh, mamma, the cathedral's justgrand," she declared with enthusiasm, after her first visit. "I told Miss Ann that Iwishedpapa had stayed a Catholic and had raised me that way."
Mrs. Sullivan's Baptist eyebrows flew up in horror, then her entire face settled into its normal look of hopelessness.
"Maybe you won't be so glib to wish it at the Great Day of Judgment," she said warningly, and the capital letters I have used were all in her voice.
"—And the mummies!" Neva hastened on, seeing that she had struck the wrong key, and her toneswere as light and frolicksome as her mother's were lugubrious. "I just love mummies!"
Mrs. Sullivan still refused to show a smiling interest.
"Well, I reckon they're all right, if Miss Ann recommends 'em," she said grudgingly, but with a little wonder depicted on her face; "still, I make it a rule not to fillmystomach too full of strange vittles!"
"Oh, mamma! They ain't things to eat," Neva corrected, struggling between her shame and amusement, then she launched forth into a brief explanation of embalming "after the manner of the Egyptians."
At the word "Egyptians" quick comprehension dawned in Mrs. Sullivan's disapproving eyes. Certainly she had read her Bible.
"Shucks! Isthemwhat you're talking about? Well, I can tell you, miss, I knew all about mummies beforeyouwas ever borned! But you talked about 'em so gushing that I thought of course they was some kind o' new-fangled ice-cream."
"When I said that Ilovedthem I meant that they aresointeresting, you know," Neva said, hoping to mollify her, but her explanation proved a poor qualityof oil poured upon the troubled waters of maternal understanding.
"Them's strange things for a girl to be going to see," she commented with pointed brevity. "—Men, women and children layin' there withoutnoclo'es on—and nobody not knowing what they died with!"
But the fires! I don't know whether there was an unusually large number of such calamities during this period or not, but I had never had my attention so attracted to them before.
We happened to find ourselves almost in the thick of one the very first day we were up in the shopping district, and the excitement so appealed to Neva that after that no member of the fire department could have taken a more lively interest in the clang of the bell than she did.
On the last night of Mrs. Sullivan's stay, when she was already weeping over having to leave her only born, there was such a sudden and close clang of the alarm as would furnish Edgar Allan Poe with inspiration enough for four more stanzas of "bells, bells, bells."
Neva listened, counted the strokes, then scrambled around distractedly for the alarm card. The fire might be near enough for her to see!
"Well, Nevar," her mother said, wiping her eyes and looking at her motions with reproach, "it is poorly worth while trying to educateyou! You've been here a whole week andain't learned the fire-alarm card yet!"
ALFRED COLLECTS A DEBT
Alfred Morgan is one of those men whose backbone is built out of seasoned hickory.
I wish some of the poets would start the fashion of writing epics about the hero who goes through college without getting any money from home. To me he seems vastly greater than he who taketh a city.
Alfred did this, selling his pretty saddle mare for money enough to start in on, then borrowing some from the banks and winning scholarships the rest of the way. Incidentally, he has a very handsome chin.
Now there are two things that are an abomination to me, yea three—white eyelashes, a receding chin, and negro dialect written by a northern writer. The white eyelashes I admit are a misfortune, not a fault; the receding chin—well, I have wondered if that defect might be remedied by a little crinoline infused into the character, for without a doubt it isa visible sign of a weakness that will sooner or later become visible. The negro dialect allusion has no business here, but I had written it down once in a note-book in a list of my pet abominations, and I wanted to work it in somewhere, so this seemed as good a place as any. However, the question of chin is the only one with which we have to deal to-night.
As I have above intimated, Alfred is dark-lashed and well-chinned, else we could never have been the friends that we are. That we are good friends is proved by the fact that whenever I want to go anywhere with him I ask him to take me along, and if there is any reason why I should not go, all he ever says by way of explanation is a brief, "No, I can't be bothered with you to-day, my dear."
It happened pretty much after that fashion yesterday afternoon, when I had lunched with Ann Lisbeth and he had mentioned that he had a long country drive to take. The sun was shining alluringly, and I had been feeling very dull.
"I believe I'll go with you," I volunteered, as we congregated around him at the front door and he began looking about for his black leather bag.
"I wish I could take you, for it's a beautiful drive," he responded, looking down at me with asmile in his brown eyes, "but I couldn't be sure of getting you home before very late."
"Is the trip such a long one?"
"No; but I have some urgent business in the city afterward. I've brought suit for a medical bill, and am expecting at any moment to be summoned to the magistrate's court."
"How exciting! But I could come home on the car if you are detained very late."
"How disgusting rather!" he answered, ignoring the suggestion of mine about the street-car, but I saw him pick up a lap-robe lying near and brush a little dust from it. This was a sign that he expected me to go, for he scorns the comforts of a lap-robe for himself, even on the coldest days.
"It's hateful business," he continued, dropping the robe and searching around for the little broom which Ann Lisbeth keeps tied to the hat-rack, for both her doctors consider that cleanliness is godliness. "There will be a pack of lies sworn to in heathen jargon and hours wasted trying to make the scoundrels come to terms."
"Heathen? Literally or figuratively?"
"Both. The man who owes the money is that Hindoo I operated on last year for appendicitis, butthe circus he travels with is really responsible for the debt; so I'm going to attach a few of their lions and tigers and snake-charmers to make them settle up while they're in town this time."
"Why, Alfred! I don't know of anything this side of African jungles so thrilling. I believe I'll go with you anyway, even if I have to walk back. If the circus men should decide to pay you in lions instead of money you might need me to help herd them home."
He smiled as I reached for my hat.
"There's something in that," he said, "for they would willingly followyou." Then, coming a step nearer so that he could not be heard by Ann Lisbeth, who stood near by, he kept on, "I would trust you to charm anything that has eyes."
The telephone rang just as he spoke, and Ann Lisbeth went to answer it. I was surprised at the tone of his voice, for Alfred very rarely pays me compliments, and never one anything like this before. I was surprised still more at myself as I caught at this opportunity for a sincere,masculinecompliment.
"Alfred," I said quickly, half afraid that Ann Lisbeth would come back before I could make him saywhat I longed to hear, "Alfred, do you think I'm good-looking?"
I had the grace to blush as I said it, but the blush was not for Alfred. I felt that he knew the real question in my mind was, "Do you suppose Richard Chalmers thought I was good-looking that day we sat on the old stone wall by the orchard gate?"
But Alfred was simple and sincere always, and he saw in my question only the query any vain girl might put to a close friend. And into his eyes darted a quick look of pain and confusion. I wondered if my vanity lowered his ideal of me.
"You evidently have no knowledge of what Idothink of you—else you wouldn't ask such a silly question," he answered gravely.
"I beg your pardon if—if I have offended you by my foolish talk, but I was only trying to make you say something pretty to me—you never do, you know." I was genuinely confused, myself, now.
"I thought 'pretty things' were unnecessary between you and me, Ann," he answered again, more gravely still.
"Every woman likes them," I said, trying to relieve the tension by my tone of lightness.
"Then I can gratify you—if that's what you want.I think—that is, to me you are the most beautiful woman in the world!"
I was so stunned at his unexpected reply and the entirelynewlook on his face as he made it that I should have betrayed the thoughts which came surging to my mind if Ann Lisbeth had not rejoined us then with a commonplace remark about my taking a heavy coat along with me if I decided to go with Alfred.
"You're going, aren't you?" he asked casually, as if the matter were of no moment with him, but I saw how he reached for my coat as I nodded my head, and he bade Ann Lisbeth not to take up so much of his valuable time as she fussed a little over the careless way I fixed my veil, and insisted on my letting her pin it on properly.
The woods were beautiful, but I saw their beauty only in a vague, fantastic way. My thoughts were in a sad tumult, partly on my own account, partly on Alfred's, for I felt that his strange words spoken at the hall door would be followed up by something far more manifest.
I knew him so well that there was no need for me to agitate my mind over whether his words and looks meant anything, as I had done in thecase of Richard Chalmers that day in the orchard when he had said "pretty things." Ah, he had said them so prettily!
How could I let Alfred know, without wounding him and spoiling our comradeship? Or would it be betternotto let him know? To ignore his words and avoid such dangerous ground in the future—until he had forgotten them himself. Even the strongest, staunchest lovers cease to love after a while, when there is nothing for the flame to feed upon, I argued, and I set about steering away from any reference that might lead back to the perilous line of talk which had been so mercifully interrupted.
I espied a redbird—belated little wanderer—sitting on the fence by the side of the road, and I began telling Alfred of Mammy Lou's superstitions concerning redbirds and other little creatures too happy and bright to have even a tinge of superstition attached to them. But as I laughed at the notion I made a wish, and saw with joy that the bird flew away out of view.
There is a queer admixture of the fatalist in my make-up and, as the redbird flew away, carrying my wish with him, I had a feeling that that wish wouldcome to pass. It was a very simple, fervid, all-embracing affair—that I should see Richard Chalmers again very soon—and that he shouldloveme.
The first time I had looked at that man's face I felt as if I had turned a leaf in the book of my destiny. When Rufe mentioned his name to me and I later learned that he was the same man whose face had formed the centerpiece of all my mental pictures, I fancied that Fate was about to keep her promise; and when he had lingered over saying good-by that night at home I felt as if my fancies might have a chance of coming true.
Then I had come up to the city and stayed for days and days, without hearing one word from him. This humiliated me until I was angry with myself for having ever given him a thought. I am of a proud nature which would demand far more of a man than he should everseethat I gave.
I was certainly not in love with Richard Chalmers as I drove with Alfred out that country road, but I was intensely fascinated, so much so that my thoughts flew to him with the flight of the redbird, and for a while I forgot that I was neglecting my task of keeping Alfred's mind diverted.
From the country we drove back to Alfred'soffice and I stayed in the reception-room and looked at magazines while he was busy with some patients in his private office. It was getting well toward evening and the stenographer was beginning to arrange her desk in readiness to leave when Alfred came into the room and began to fume about the delay in being summoned to court. He suggested that I telephone Cousin Eunice that I would be late, which I did, but I found that my absence was going to make small difference to them, as she and Rufe were going out to a lecture, and I should be thrown on the society of Waterloo for the evening.
"Make Alfred take you on to Ann Lisbeth's, and Rufe and I will come by for you after the lecture," she suggested, which was an easy solution and would not cause Alfred to feel that he must hurry on my account.
He smiled when I told him of this arrangement.
"So you are going to be left entirely to me this one evening, it seems," he said. "The Gordons are dining out and bade me satisfy my hunger before I came home. I propose that we go on up to Beauregard's now and have dinner, then I'll take you home and let you tell tales to Waterloo until he goes to sleep."
"I'm not dressed to go to Beauregard's," I began, looking down sadly at my tailored clothes and linen blouse. I was very hungry, and Beauregard's is a delicious place. But my longings were cut short by a ring at the telephone, and I knew from the answers he made that Alfred was at last summoned to the magistrate's court.
"Jump in and go with me," he directed, as he began giving the colored boy and stenographer directions for closing up the office. "Likely I sha'n't be long; and we'll go to dinner as soon as they get through with me."
We drove to the magistrate's court and I sat in the car and waited for him. I waited while the darkness came on and the street lights flared up; I waited while everybody else was crowding into the homeward-bound electric cars—and I was still waiting long after the throngs had thinned out and the cars were carrying their scant loads, which means that all the world is at its evening meal.
Finally he came out, looking tired and disgusted, but he told me that the case had been adjusted satisfactorily to him, although the final settlement was not to be made until after the circus performance that night, when the business manager of the mightyshow could be freed from his duties and so present himself at the pleasant little affair.
"The mischief of it is that my lawyer and I have to go out to the show grounds and keep an eye on the manager," he explained, with a slightly worried look.
"And don't you know what to do with me?"
"Exactly! It's too late to send you home in a cab by yourself, and I can't go and take you now. What shall I do with you?"
"Why, take me to the circus."
He looked at me a moment, then looked at his watch and hesitated. "I hate to," he said, "but I don't see anything else to be done." So we started off again.
Fortunately the performance was nearly over when we got there, for it was the last night and everything was cut delightfully short, so I decided that I would rather stay out in the machine for that length of time, and watch the crowds swarm out to the street-cars than to be mixed up more closely with them.
Alfred drove up under a big arc-light and halted at the end of a long string of automobiles and carriages.
"You'll not be afraid here—and I'll be back as soon as I can," he said as he left me.
I pulled the rug up over me and reached back for a magazine I had brought, but the unsteady light on the printed pages soon caused my eyes to hurt, so I laid the book down again and gave myself up to the misery of just plain waiting.
After what seemed hours to me Alfred sent a little negro boy to the car with the message that I was to empty out his largest instrument case and send it to him.
"Maybe they have compromised on part money and a few baby lions," I mused, as I leaned back and gave myself up to another period of waiting.
I once heard Ann Lisbeth say that the only medical attention a doctor's wife ever gets is a sample bottle of iron tonic hastily handed her from a desk drawer once in a while, if she happens to be sitting near by and looking pale. I should not object to this, being healthy and seldom needing an iron tonic, but I do think the long waiting spells which any one who goes out with a doctor has to be subjected to would eventually make a woman so nervous that she would have to have some kind of tonic. I have registered a vow that hereafter, even if I start out somewherewith Alfred in August, I shall take my furs along, not knowing but that it will be winter when I get back.
He finally came, however, and in looking at him I forgot the tediousness of my long wait. His eyes were flashing and his face was flushed. He looked very angry—and very handsome. Evidently he had not been suffering from cold as I had.
He had on his long overcoat, which seemed almost to drag him down, big as he is, with its weight; and the pockets were bulging dropsically—if there is such a word. His instrument case he deposited in the car, right in the way of my feet, but when I tried to move it I found that it would not budge.
"Are you tired?" he asked, as he began to crank the car.
"I'm tired and cold—andhungry."
"All of which will soon be remedied," and he smiled as he looked at me. "Ann, you never saw a man in my condition before in your life."
"What?"
He had a hard time working his way into the car with those bulging pockets, but he finally got fixed satisfactorily, then he moved the heavy instrument case; and I gave my feet several relieved shakes.
"Very likely for the first time in your young life you behold a man who has more money than he knows what to do with!"
"Money!" I edged away respectfully to give the pockets more room. "Is it money?"
"Every pound of it is coin of the realm," he answered. "It isnickels."
"Alfred!"
"Those low-down scoundrels paid me in nickels." And his eyes began to flash again.
"What on earth for?"
"For pure cussedness!"
"And you had to count them all!" No wonder he had been gone a long time.
"I sat there like a fool and counted the instrument case full; then I dumped the rest into my pockets. The lawyer is sitting in front of his little pile now, counting it; and there is a small bag full to be sent to the magistrate to-morrow."
"Why, it's like a dream, isn't it? I never heard of so much money."
"And I never believed before that surgeons charge too much for their services—but now—"
We laughed all the way back to town; we drove up to Beauregard's laughing; we laughed as Alfredslipped off his coat and the solemn waiter looked startled at the heaviness of the garment. Then we looked around leisurely to select a table, for it was late and the diners were few.
"Let's go into the booth," I suggested, nodding toward a small mahogany partition at one side and near the front of the restaurant. This compartment was built with some other purpose in view than acting as a private dining-room, for the open doorway is unscreened in any way, and the partition itself is only about seven feet high. I set down these uninteresting figures to let you know that I am a well-brought-up young person and don't go into private dining-rooms unchaperoned—nor should I have been here at all with any one but Alfred.
I had learned the comforts of this mahogany screen from having come here often with Cousin Eunice and Waterloo. We always make a bee-line for its shelter when we have him with us, for he fills his mouth so full that his mother always has to make him stop and unload. This is less embarrassing when there is a partition between her and the public.
The place happened to be unoccupied when we came into the restaurant that night, and Alfred andI sat down with a sigh of mingled exhaustion and content. He began a lavish and extensive order which I curtailed materially on account of the lateness of the hour.
"We can't spendallour nickels to-night," I said, reprovingly; and we laughed a little over the nickels, at intervals, all through the meal.
Then we talked, or at least, I talked, which is usually the case when Alfred and I are together. I asked him questions about the circus people and the curious sights he had seen in the tent which was not open to the public. And he told me about the hideous Cossacks standing guard over their high-pommelled saddles, as the hurried process of packing went on, the long-haired ranchmen, who were tenderly laying away their guns; and the Hindoo woman who sat and glared at him as he handled the nickels which would mean months of a lessened salary for her and her husband.
"Thinkof the balloons and pop-corn and red lemonade those nickels represent," I said, still on the subject of the circus, as we finished our meal and left the table.
Under the influence of the good dinner, the soft lights, with their soothing shades on the table, andthe warm air of the comfortable room after my long wait in the autumn cold, I was beginning to feel deliciously sleepy, and was thinking with pleasure in how short a time Alfred could make the distance home, now that the streets were not crowded—when we left the booth and I looked around at the people occupying the other tables. I looked at them indifferently, as I waited for Alfred to put on his overcoat, my eyes traveling slowly around the room, until they stopped at a table close in front of where I was standing.
Just outside the partition and sitting so squarely facing it that I dropped one of my long gloves in my startled surprise when I saw him, was Richard Chalmers, smoking a fragrant cigar, from which he had stripped a dainty red-and-gold band, which was lying upon the newspaper he had spread out in front of him.
But he was not reading, and I imagined from his look that he had not been reading for some time, for he was looking straight at me with the same half-amused smile he had worn when he had sat on the old stone wall that day and told me that there was a vast difference in our ages. It seemed that he was quietly waiting for me to look at him, and, as oureyes met, he rose at once, and came over and shook hands with me.
"I was waiting for you to come out, Miss Fielding," he said, after I had introduced the two men and they had reached simultaneously for my glove, which Alfred got to first—then Mr. Chalmers began to fold the paper he had not been reading, and made preparations to leave the place as we did. "I happened to drop in here a little while ago, and, fortunately, chose this table. Then I heard your voice—I felt sure that it was you—so I waited to see."
Alfred excused himself a moment and crossed the room to speak to a white-haired old gentleman at one of the tables. I recognized this old man as a well-known back number in the medical profession of the city, and had heard Doctor Gordon say that he was pitiably grateful for any attention which the younger fellows showed him. Alfred spoke a few words of congratulation on a recent address the old doctor had made at a medical meeting, they both laughed over a half-whispered joke, then Alfred turned to leave. An appealing hand was laid on his coat sleeve, as he allowed himself to be cornered by the old man, and a harangue ensued, carried onin a quavering, high-pitched voice, with now and then a deep-toned word from Alfred.
I stood and waited for him and Richard Chalmers came closer to me as I glanced over into one of the mirrors on the wall and began to tie the big veil around my hat again, and to pull up my coat-collar a bit closer, preparatory to going out into the chilly air.
He dropped his voice and began to talk as rapidly as his lazy, southern drawl would let him. He seemed to have a good deal to say and he wished to say it all. I was in an agony of fear that the old doctor's harangue might not last long enough.
"Yes, the next week after seeing you I went East and returned only this morning," Richard's voice was saying, and, while the words made all the difference in the world to me, still I heard them only indistinctly. All I could take in was the fact that I was hearing his voice again.
"I reached the city this morning, and telephoned Clayborne about noon to ask him where you were. You remember you told me that you were booked to come home with them? I was very glad indeed when he said that you were at his house, and I should have gone out to see Mrs. Clayborne to-night—Iwanted to tell her about my mother and sister coming up to town next week for some shopping. They live in Charlotteville—eastern end of the state, you know—but Clayborne said that there was a lecture or something on for to-night. He thought you would all likely be at home to-morrow evening."
"Yes—I think so. We shall be very glad to see you."
"It was the merest chance that I dropped in here and heard you talking—I understood that something very amusing had happened at a circus."
"Yes," I said weakly.
"So I stayed to listen. You will forgive me—for I knew that it was your voice, and"—with awonderfulsmile—"you see I am very fond of music."
A SHOPPING EXPEDITION
"ORichard, O mon roi," I carolled this morning, but I confess that I carolled it as much in an undertone as the unfortunate aristocrats had to employ when they chose to give vent to their feelings by singing that song during the Reign of Terror.
I was up-stairs in my own room at Cousin Eunice's, brushing, shaking, smoothing, folding, and now and then mending a little ripped place in my clothes, for, during the last four weeks I have done nothing but wear them. Early in the morning, all through the day, and late at night, I have lived to maltreat those clothes. And they are showing signs of being weary and wounded.
It is a good thing, possibly, that mother and Cousin Eunice would not let me have the black spangled net that my soul yearned for, else there would not have been a spangle left to tell the tale by this time.
Cousin Eunice was in the next room throughout the time I was thus employed—that is, she was in and out, hence the undertone in my singing.
"Ann," she finally called in a vexed tone, after a period of silence, "you'll live to learn, after you're married, that a man and his poll-tax receipt are soon parted."
"It's a registration certificate," I amended softly.
"Well, what if it is? It's eternally lost when they want it."
She had spent the morning emptying bureau drawers, scratching through piles of old papers, peering under the clock, into a cracked vase, moving the piano and searching in the dusty lint beneath, and dazzling her eyesight by a scramble through a five-years' accumulation of pink electric light bills—but no sign of the registration certificate. Toward luncheon time Rufe called her up and said he hoped she had not put herself to any trouble, for he forgot to tell her early this morning that he had already found the missing paper in his pocket-book.
"They have to register before they can vote, don't they?"
I knew that they did, but I was in a mood to talk politics this morning.
"Yes. This is just a measly little municipal election, however."
"Oh, I know that it is not gubernatorial."
"I observe that you have improved your store of knowledge mightily—since that day we sat under the althea hedge." She came into my room as she spoke, and sat down on the side of the bed.
"Yes, I feel that I know all about the state of affairs now."
"Then I wish you would tell me, so I can tell Rufe." She was tired out from her strenuous morning, and her head fell over among the pillows. I laid down the skirt I had been brushing and seated myself on the foot of the bed.
"What's the trouble?" I asked. "I thought the matter was very simple."
"You thought the matter was simple, you dear little goose, because our favorite piece of gubernatorial timber has showered you with devoted attentions this past month. It seems that he has declared his intentions toward you—so far as looks and acts go—but he is backward about his political doings."
"Then you have just not listened to what he has said," I denied stoutly, the spirit of the game strong within me, and the spirit of my admiration for himmuch stronger. "Nobody could denounce Appleton more entirely than he does!"
"Oh, Appleton!" There was infinite scorn in her tone. "What decent person doesn't denounce him?"
"Then, what's the trouble?" I asked again. "Appleton stands for whisky; we stand for water—the affair seems quite clear to me."
"And Jim Blake stands for whiskyandwater—with a goodly dash of sugar. He's a kind of toddy for our split Democracy."
"But what hasheto do with Richard Chalmers?" I asked, an uneasy fear clutching at my gay spirits.
"That's just what we want to know—before theTimescan rally to the support of Chalmers."
"TheTimes!" I was genuinely aroused now. "Why, I thought theTimeshad virtuallymadeRichard Chalmers."
"Well, the paper has boomed him because he has always stood for the right principles heretofore. But there is a grave complication about to set in now, it seems. Of course the people of this state are not going to stand for Appleton again—we are not Hottentots, and either a strong Democrat must come out, and stand on a strong platform, else we are going to have a Republican for governor."
"Well?"
"Well, the law-abiding faction is ready to support Richard Chalmers, so long as he does not compromise, but at the first evidence of weakening on his part—the vote goes to somecleanRepublican."
"And you are afraid that he will join Blake—in some way?"
"In a very clearly defined way. Blake is the most popular man in the state. He could put up a good fight for anything he wanted here—and he could throw his influence to Chalmers."
I traced the pattern of the counterpane with the end of the clothes-brush which I was still holding in my hand.
"I don't know a thing about it," I said finally, my tone and feelings far different from what they were but a few minutes before, when I had declared confidently that I knew all about it. "He has never once mentioned politics to me these last few weeks."
"Well, I dare say not," she said, straightening up and smoothing back her hair. "Imagine a man talking politics before Mrs. Chalmers and Evelyn! And they have been with you every minute that you and he have been together."
It was true. These last few weeks had broughtabout a delightful state of closer personal contact between Richard Chalmers and me, a condition which he has seemed determined to make stronger and more pronounced by every means in his power—and he has the most charming means—but always under the supervision of his mother and sister.
Supervision? Good heavens, what an absurd word to use in connection with either one of those women where Richard is concerned, for they are truly as much slaves to him as if he had chains around their wrists and ankles. A worshipping slave is his mother, while Evelyn is so timid and fearful in his presence that she appears to be much stupider than she really is, which is stupid enough, in all conscience!
When I first discovered this mighty reverence in them for the man who is so kingly to me I felt that they must recognize in him that wonderfulregalattribute, which so irresistibly attracted me. But I soon learned, for we were together constantly, that Evelyn fears and dislikes him, and the only time during those weeks of companionship that she displayed the slightest eagerness over anything was when she was urging me to accompany them on some pleasure party, where, unless I should go alongwith them, they would be left solely to the companionship of her august brother.
"He's so much nicer when you're around," she explained to me one time with a look of pleading candor, when she was insisting that I go to dinner with them that evening. I had received pressing invitations from the three members of the family, but was hesitating on account of Mammy Lou's slogan.
Evelyn is an intensely inane girl, but not bad at heart, and it had not occurred to her that she was saying the wrong thing. Her mother, who is much more acute, came forward with a flurried palliation for Evelyn's thoughtless words. Richard is so dignified that Evelyn has never grown toknowhim, she explained, with what impressed me as undue haste; he is so much older than she, and has been away from home so much of recent years.
"It doesn't make me think any less of him to know that you are both deadly afraid of him," I smiled to myself as I ran up-stairs to change my dress. "But I am not in the least afraid of him."
His women are not at all like Richard, even in so far as length, breadth and thickness go. The quality in him which results in simply a splendid physique, in them tends toward heaviness, and I haveheard from his own lips that he "hates dumpy women." Yet he cares extremely for the handsome appearance which they make in their expensive clothes, and his cold dignity finds a pleased echo in their studied correctness.
Correct they both are, and stylish andorthodox, church and clothes being the alpha and omega of their conversation.
They are conventionally polite, whereas he is always superbly courteous; and Mrs. Chalmers can invariably be depended upon to do and say exactly the right thing. Evelyn passes muster all right, because she never does or says anything.
While Richard's mother can describe to the turning of a milliner's fold the latest foibles of fashion's fancy, she is complacently old-fashioned in her notions about other things, maintaining the faith in which she was brought up, namely, that all children should be whipped and all husbands watched, while women should say their prayers regularly and see that their corsets suit their figure. She quotes the Bible unendingly and is so morbidly "proper" and ladylike that I am sure she thinks, if she ever thought about it at all, that being burned at the stake was no more than Joan of Arc deserved forbeing so immodest as to ride cross-saddle before all those fast and loose Frenchmen.