"Then that settles it, of course,--I only meant--"
"Indeed it doesn"t!" cried the girl. "Who"s to know who it"s from? Ah"m jost set on havin" it printed! Ah"m going to appear as the head of Slavery--in opposition to the head of Liberty."
"There"ll be a revolution inside of forty-eight hours, and we"ll have the Colonel"s system going wherever a copy of "Every Other Week" circulates,"
said Fulkerson.
"This sketch belongs to me," Alma interposed. "I"m not going to let it be printed."
"Oh, mah goodness!" said Miss Woodburn, laughing good-humoredly. "That"s becose you were brought up to hate slavery."
"I should like Mr. Beaton to see it," said Mrs. Leighton, in a sort of absent tone. She added, to Fulkerson: "I rather expected he might be in to-night."
"Well, if he comes we"ll leave it to Beaton," Fulkerson said, with relief in the solution, and an anxious glance at the Colonel, across the table, to see how he took that form of the joke. Miss Woodburn intercepted his glance and laughed, and Fulkerson laughed, too, but rather forlornly.
Alma set her lips primly and turned her head first on one side and then on the other to look at the sketch. "I don"t think we"ll leave it to Mr.
Beaton, even if he comes."
"We left the other design for the cover to Beaton," Fulkerson insinuated.
"I guess you needn"t be afraid of him."
"Is it a question of my being afraid?" Alma asked; she seemed coolly intent on her drawing.
"Miss Leighton thinks he ought to be afraid of her," Miss Woodburn explained.
"It"s a question of his courage, then?" said Alma.
"Well, I don"t think there are many young ladies that Beaton"s afraid of," said Fulkerson, giving himself the respite of this purely random remark, while he interrogated the faces of Mrs. Leighton and Colonel Woodburn for some light upon the tendency of their daughters" words.
He was not helped by Mrs. Leighton"s saying, with a certain anxiety, "I don"t know what you mean, Mr. Fulkerson."
"Well, you"re as much in the dark as I am myself, then," said Fulkerson.
"I suppose I meant that Beaton is rather--a--favorite, you know. The women like him."
Mrs. Leighton sighed, and Colonel Woodburn rose and left the room.
In the silence that followed, Fulkerson looked from one lady to the other with dismay. "I seem to have put my foot in it, somehow," he suggested, and Miss Woodburn gave a cry of laughter.
"Poo" Mr. Fulkerson! Poo" Mr. Fulkerson! Papa thoat you wanted him to go."
"Wanted him to go?" repeated Fulkerson.
"We always mention Mr. Beaton when we want to get rid of papa."
"Well, it seems to me that I have noticed that he didn"t take much interest in Beaton, as a general topic. But I don"t know that I ever saw it drive him out of the room before!"
"Well, he isn"t always so bad," said Miss Woodburn. "But it was a case of hate at first sight, and it seems to be growin" on papa."
"Well, I can understand that," said Fulkerson. "The impulse to destroy Beaton is something that everybody has to struggle against at the start."
"I must say, Mr. Fulkerson," said Mrs. Leighton, in the tremor through which she nerved herself to differ openly with any one she liked, "I never had to struggle with anything of the kind, in regard to Mr. Beaton.
He has always been most respectful and--and--considerate, with me, whatever he has been with others."
"Well, of course, Mrs. Leighton!" Fulkerson came back in a soothing tone.
"But you see you"re the rule that proves the exception. I was speaking of the way men felt about Beaton. It"s different with ladies; I just said so."
"Is it always different?" Alma asked, lifting her head and her hand from her drawing, and staring at it absently.
Fulkerson pushed both his hands through his whiskers. "Look here! Look here!" he said. "Won"t somebody start some other subject? We haven"t had the weather up yet, have we? Or the opera? What is the matter with a few remarks about politics?"
"Why, Ah thoat you lahked to toak about the staff of yo" magazine," said Miss Woodburn.
"Oh, I do!" said Fulkerson. "But not always about the same member of it.
He gets monotonous, when he doesn"t get complicated. I"ve just come round from the Marches"," he added, to Mrs. Leighton.
"I suppose they"ve got thoroughly settled in their apartment by this time." Mrs. Leighton said something like this whenever the Marches were mentioned. At the bottom of her heart she had not forgiven them for not taking her rooms; she had liked their looks so much; and she was always hoping that they were uncomfortable or dissatisfied; she could not help wanting them punished a little.
"Well, yes; as much as they ever will be," Fulkerson answered. "The Boston style is pretty different, you know; and the Marches are old-fashioned folks, and I reckon they never went in much for bric-a-brac They"ve put away nine or ten barrels of dragon candlesticks, but they keep finding new ones."
"Their landlady has just joined our cla.s.s," said Alma. "Isn"t her name Green? She happened to see my copy of "Every Other Week", and said she knew the editor; and told me."
"Well, it"s a little world," said Fulkerson. "You seem to be touching elbows with everybody. Just think of your having had our head translator for a model."
"Ah think that your whole publication revolves aroand the Leighton family," said Miss Woodburn.
"That"s pretty much so," Fulkerson admitted. "Anyhow, the publisher seems disposed to do so."
"Are you the publisher? I thought it was Mr. Dryfoos," said Alma.
"It is."
"Oh!"
The tone and the word gave Fulkerson a discomfort which he promptly confessed. "Missed again."
The girls laughed, and he regained something of his lost spirits, and smiled upon their gayety, which lasted beyond any apparent reason for it.
Miss Woodburn asked, "And is Mr. Dryfoos senio" anything like ouah Mr.
Dryfoos?"
"Not the least."
"But he"s jost as exemplary?"
"Yes; in his way."
"Well, Ah wish Ah could see all those pinks of puffection togethah, once."
"Why, look here! I"ve been thinking I"d celebrate a little, when the old gentleman gets back. Have a little supper--something of that kind. How would you like to let me have your parlors for it, Mrs. Leighton? You ladies could stand on the stairs, and have a peep at us, in the bunch."