The Colonel enjoyed letting her scold him to the end before he said, with a twinkle of pride in his guest and satisfaction in her probably being able to hold her own against any discomfiture, "I"ve brought Mr.
Corey down for the night with me, and I was showing him things all the way, and it took time."
The young fellow was at the side of the open beach-wagon, making a quick bow, and Penelope Lapham was cozily drawling, "Oh, how do you do, Mr. Corey?" before the Colonel had finished his explanation.
"Get right in there, alongside of Miss Lapham, Mr. Corey," he said, pulling himself up into the place beside the driver. "No, no," he had added quickly, at some signs of polite protest in the young man, "I don"t give up the best place to anybody. Jerry, suppose you let me have hold of the leathers a minute."
This was his way of taking the reins from the driver; and in half the time he specified, he had skilfully turned the vehicle on the pier, among the crooked lines and groups of foot-pa.s.sengers, and was spinning up the road toward the stretch of verandaed hotels and restaurants in the sand along the sh.o.r.e. "Pretty gay down here," he said, indicating all this with a turn of his whip, as he left it behind him. "But I"ve got about sick of hotels; and this summer I made up my mind that I"d take a cottage. Well, Pen, how are the folks?" He looked half-way round for her answer, and with the eye thus brought to bear upon her he was able to give her a wink of supreme content. The Colonel, with no sort of ulterior design, and nothing but his triumph over Mrs. Lapham definitely in his mind, was feeling, as he would have said, about right.
The girl smiled a daughter"s amus.e.m.e.nt at her father"s boyishness. "I don"t think there"s much change since morning. Did Irene have a headache when you left?"
"No," said the Colonel.
"Well, then, there"s that to report."
"Pshaw!" said the Colonel with vexation in his tone.
"I"m sorry Miss Irene isn"t well," said Corey politely.
"I think she must have got it from walking too long on the beach. The air is so cool here that you forget how hot the sun is."
"Yes, that"s true," a.s.sented Corey.
"A good night"s rest will make it all right," suggested the Colonel, without looking round. "But you girls have got to look out."
"If you"re fond of walking," said Corey, "I suppose you find the beach a temptation."
"Oh, it isn"t so much that," returned the girl. "You keep walking on and on because it"s so smooth and straight before you. We"ve been here so often that we know it all by heart--just how it looks at high tide, and how it looks at low tide, and how it looks after a storm. We"re as well acquainted with the crabs and stranded jelly-fish as we are with the children digging in the sand and the people sitting under umbrellas. I think they"re always the same, all of them."
The Colonel left the talk to the young people. When he spoke next it was to say, "Well, here we are!" and he turned from the highway and drove up in front of a brown cottage with a vermilion roof, and a group of geraniums clutching the rock that cropped up in the loop formed by the road. It was treeless and bare all round, and the ocean, unnecessarily vast, weltered away a little more than a stone"s-cast from the cottage. A hospitable smell of supper filled the air, and Mrs. Lapham was on the veranda, with that demand in her eyes for her belated husband"s excuses, which she was obliged to check on her tongue at sight of Corey.
VII.
THE exultant Colonel swung himself lightly down from his seat. "I"ve brought Mr. Corey with me," he nonchalantly explained.
Mrs. Lapham made their guest welcome, and the Colonel showed him to his room, briefly a.s.suring himself that there was nothing wanting there.
Then he went to wash his own hands, carelessly ignoring the eagerness with which his wife pursued him to their chamber.
"What gave Irene a headache?" he asked, making himself a fine lather for his hairy paws.
"Never you mind Irene," promptly retorted his wife. "How came he to come? Did you press him? If you DID, I"ll never forgive you, Silas!"
The Colonel laughed, and his wife shook him by the shoulder to make him laugh lower. ""Sh!" she whispered. "Do you want him to hear EVERY thing? DID you urge him?"
The Colonel laughed the more. He was going to get all the good out of this. "No, I didn"t urge him. Seemed to want to come."
"I don"t believe it. Where did you meet him?"
"At the office."
"What office?"
"Mine."
"Nonsense! What was he doing there?"
"Oh, nothing much."
"What did he come for?" "Come for? Oh! he SAID he wanted to go into the mineral paint business."
Mrs. Lapham dropped into a chair, and watched his bulk shaken with smothered laughter. "Silas Lapham," she gasped, "if you try to get off any more of those things on me----"
The Colonel applied himself to the towel. "Had a notion he could work it in South America. I don"t know what he"s up to."
"Never mind!" cried his wife. "I"ll get even with you YET."
"So I told him he had better come down and talk it over," continued the Colonel, in well-affected simplicity. "I knew he wouldn"t touch it with a ten-foot pole."
"Go on!" threatened Mrs. Lapham.
"Right thing to do, wa"n"t it?"
A tap was heard at the door, and Mrs. Lapham answered it. A maid announced supper. "Very well," she said, "come to tea now. But I"ll make you pay for this, Silas."
Penelope had gone to her sister"s room as soon as she entered the house.
"Is your head any better, "Rene?" she asked.
"Yes, a little," came a voice from the pillows. "But I shall not come to tea. I don"t want anything. If I keep still, I shall be all right by morning."
"Well, I"m sorry," said the elder sister. "He"s come down with father."
"He hasn"t! Who?" cried Irene, starting up in simultaneous denial and demand.
"Oh, well, if you say he hasn"t, what"s the use of my telling you who?"
"Oh, how can you treat me so!" moaned the sufferer. "What do you mean, Pen?"
"I guess I"d better not tell you," said Penelope, watching her like a cat playing with a mouse. "If you"re not coming to tea, it would just excite you for nothing."
The mouse moaned and writhed upon the bed.
"Oh, I wouldn"t treat YOU so!"
The cat seated herself across the room, and asked quietly--