"And all that we"ve done, my dear fellow"--I took in irony the word she left to me--"is to load ourselves up with these two impossible people, to go their security to destiny, and answer for their having a good time. We"re in luck."
"Why, I don"t know," said Kendricks, and I could see that his fancy was beginning to play with the situation; "I don"t see why it isn"t a charming scheme."
"Of course it is," cried Mrs. March, taking a little heart from his courage.
"We can"t make out yet whether the girl is interesting," I put in maliciously.
"That is what YOU say," said my wife. "She is very shy, and of course she wouldn"t show out her real nature to you. I found her VERY interesting."
"Now, Isabel!" I protested.
"She is fascinating," the perverse woman persisted. "She has a fascinating dulness."
Kendricks laughed and I jeered at this complex characterisation.
"You make me impatient to judge for myself," he said.
"Will you go with me to call upon them this evening?" asked Mrs.
March.
"I shall be delighted. And you can count upon me to aid and abet you in your generous conspiracy, Mrs. March, to the best of my ability. There"s nothing I should like better than to help you--"
"Throw "dust in her beautiful eyes,"" I quoted.
"Not at all," said my wife. "But to spread a beatific haze over everything, so that as long as she stays in Saratoga she shall see life rose-colour. Of course you may say that it"s a kind of deception--"
"Not at all!" cried the young fellow in his turn. "We will make it reality. Then there will be no harm in it."
"What a jesuitical casuist! You had better read what Cardinal Newman says in his Apologia about lying, young man."
Neither of them minded me, for just then there was a stir of drapery round the corner of the piazza from where we were sitting, and the next moment Mrs. Deering and Miss Gage showed themselves.
"We were just talking of you," said Mrs. March. "May I present our friend Mr. Kendricks, Mrs. Deering? And Miss Gage?"
At sight of the young man, so well dressed and good-looking, who bowed so prettily to her, and then bustled to place chairs for them, a certain cloud seemed to lift from Miss Gage"s beautiful face, and to be at least partly broken on Mrs. Deering"s visage. I began to talk to the girl, and she answered in good spirits, and with more apparent interest in my conversation than she had yet shown, while Kendricks very properly devoted himself to the other ladies. Both his eyes were on them, but I felt that he had a third somehow upon her, and that the smallest fact of her beauty and grace was not lost upon him. I knew that her rich, tender voice was doing its work, too, through the commonplaces she vouchsafed to me. There was a moment when I saw him lift a questioning eyebrow upon Mrs. March, and saw her answer with a fleeting frown of affirmation. I cannot tell just how it was that, before he left us, his chair was on the other side of Miss Gage"s, and I was eliminated from the dialogue.
He did not stay too long. There was another tableau of him on foot, taking leave of Mrs. March, with a high hand-shake, which had then lately come in, and which I saw the girl note, and then bowing to her and to Mrs. Deering.
"Don"t forget," my wife called after him, with a ready invention not lost on his quick intelligence, "that you"re going to the concert with us after tea. Eight o"clock, remember."
"You may be sure I shall remember THAT," he returned gaily.
CHAPTER IX
The countenances of the ladies fell instantly when he was gone.
"Mrs. March," said Mrs. Deering, with a nervous tremor, "did Mr.
March get us those rooms at the Grand Union?"
"No--no," my wife began, and she made a little pause, as if to gather plausibility. "The Grand Union was very full, and he thought that at the States--"
"Because," said Mrs. Deering, "I don"t know as we shall trouble him, after all. Mr. Deering isn"t very well, and I guess we have got to go home--"
"GO HOME!" Mrs. March echoed, and her voice was a tone-scene of a toppling hope and a widespread desolation. "Why, you mustn"t!"
"We must, I guess. It had begun to be very pleasant, and--I guess I have got to go. I can"t feel easy about him."
"Why, of course," Mrs. March now a.s.sented, and she waved her fan thoughtfully before her face. I knew what she was thinking of, and I looked at Miss Gage, who had involuntarily taken the pose and expression of the moment when I first saw her at the kiosk in Congress Park. "And Miss Gage?"
"Oh yes; I must go too," said the girl wistfully, forlornly. She had tears in her voice, tears of despair and vexation, I should have said.
"That"s too bad," said Mrs. March, and, as she did not offer any solution of the matter, I thought it rather heartless of her to go on and rub it in. "And we were just planning some things we could do together."
"It can"t be helped now," returned the girl.
"But we shall see you again before you go?" Mrs. March asked of both.
"Well, I don"t know," said the girl, with a look at Mrs. Deering, who now said -
"I guess so. We"ll let you know when we"re going." And they got away rather stiffly.
"Why in the world, my dear," I asked, "if you weren"t going to promote their stay, need you prolong the agony of their acquaintance?"
"Did you feel that about it too? Well, I wanted to ask you first if you thought it would do."
"What do?"
"You know; get her a room here. Because if we do we shall have her literally on our hands as long as we are here. We shall have to have the whole care and responsibility of her, and I wanted you to feel just what you were going in for. You know very well I can"t do things by halves, and that if I undertake to chaperon this girl I shall chaperon her--"
"To the bitter end. Yes; I understand the conditions of your uncompromising conscience. But I don"t believe it will be any such killing matter. There are other semi-detached girls in the house; she could go round with them."
We talked on, and, as sometimes happens, we convinced each other so thoroughly that she came to my ground and I went to hers. Then it was easier for us to come together, and after making me go to the clerk and find out that he had a vacant room, Mrs. March agreed with me that it would not do at all to have Miss Gage stay with us; the fact that there was a vacant room seemed to settle the question.
We were still congratulating ourselves on our escape when Mrs.
Deering suddenly reappeared round our corner of the verandah. She was alone, and she looked excited.
"Oh, it isn"t anything," she said in answer to the alarm that showed itself in Mrs. March"s face at sight of her. "I hope you won"t think it"s too presuming, Mrs. March, and I want you to believe that it"s something I have thought of by myself, and that Julia wouldn"t have let me come if she had dreamed of such a thing. I do hate so to take her back with me, now that she"s begun to have a good time, and I was wondering--wondering whether it would be asking too much if I tried to get her a room here. I shouldn"t exactly like to leave her in the hotel alone, though I suppose it would be perfectly proper; but Mr. Deering found out when he was trying to get rooms before that there were some young ladies staying by themselves here, and I didn"t want to ask the clerk for a room unless you felt just right about it."
"Why, of course, Mrs. Deering. It"s a public house, like any other, and you have as much right--"
"But I didn"t want you to think that I would do it without asking you, and if it is going to be the least bit of trouble to you." The poor thing while she talked stood leaning anxiously over toward Mrs.
March, who had risen, and pressing the points of her fingers nervously together.
"It won"t, Mrs. Deering. It will be nothing but pleasure. Why, certainly. I shall be delighted to have Miss Gage here, and anything that Mr. March and I can do--Why, we had just been talking of it, and Mr. March has this minute got back from seeing the clerk, and she can have a very nice room. We had been intending to speak to you about it as soon as we saw you."