"And I couldn"t do less than bring him here to tea."
"Oh, certainly not."
"But he ain"t going to stay the night--unless," faltered Lapham, "you want him to."
"Oh, of course, I want him to! I guess he"ll stay, probably."
"Well, you know how crowded that last boat always is, and he can"t get any other now."
Mrs. Lapham laughed at the simple wile. "I hope you"ll be just as well satisfied, Si, if it turns out he doesn"t want Irene after all."
"Pshaw, Persis! What are you always bringing that up for?" pleaded the Colonel. Then he fell silent, and presently his rude, strong face was clouded with an unconscious frown.
"There!" cried his wife, startling him from his abstraction. "I see how you"d feel; and I hope that you"ll remember who you"ve got to blame."
"I"ll risk it," said Lapham, with the confidence of a man used to success.
From the veranda the sound of Penelope"s lazy tone came through the closed windows, with joyous laughter from Irene and peals from Corey.
"Listen to that!" said her father within, swelling up with inexpressible satisfaction. "That girl can talk for twenty, right straight along. She"s better than a circus any day. I wonder what she"s up to now."
"Oh, she"s probably getting off some of those yarns of hers, or telling about some people. She can"t step out of the house without coming back with more things to talk about than most folks would bring back from j.a.pan. There ain"t a ridiculous person she"s ever seen but what she"s got something from them to make you laugh at; and I don"t believe we"ve ever had anybody in the house since the girl could talk that she hain"t got some saying from, or some trick that"ll paint "em out so"t you can see "em and hear "em. Sometimes I want to stop her; but when she gets into one of her gales there ain"t any standing up against her. I guess it"s lucky for Irene that she"s got Pen there to help entertain her company. I can"t ever feel down where Pen is."
"That"s so," said the Colonel. "And I guess she"s got about as much culture as any of them. Don"t you?"
"She reads a great deal," admitted her mother. "She seems to be at it the whole while. I don"t want she should injure her health, and sometimes I feel like s.n.a.t.c.hin" the books away from her. I don"t know as it"s good for a girl to read so much, anyway, especially novels. I don"t want she should get notions."
"Oh, I guess Pen"ll know how to take care of herself," said Lapham.
"She"s got sense enough. But she ain"t so practical as Irene. She"s more up in the clouds--more of what you may call a dreamer. Irene"s wide-awake every minute; and I declare, any one to see these two together when there"s anything to be done, or any lead to be taken, would say Irene was the oldest, nine times out of ten. It"s only when they get to talking that you can see Pen"s got twice as much brains."
"Well," said Lapham, tacitly granting this point, and leaning back in his chair in supreme content. "Did you ever see much nicer girls anywhere?"
His wife laughed at his pride. "I presume they"re as much swans as anybody"s geese."
"No; but honestly, now!"
"Oh, they"ll do; but don"t you be silly, if you can help it, Si."
The young people came in, and Corey said it was time for his boat.
Mrs. Lapham pressed him to stay, but he persisted, and he would not let the Colonel send him to the boat; he said he would rather walk.
Outside, he pushed along toward the boat, which presently he could see lying at her landing in the bay, across the sandy tract to the left of the hotels. From time to time he almost stopped in his rapid walk, as a man does whose mind is in a pleasant tumult; and then he went forward at a swifter pace. "She"s charming!" he said, and he thought he had spoken aloud. He found himself floundering about in the deep sand, wide of the path; he got back to it, and reached the boat just before she started. The clerk came to take his fare, and Corey looked radiantly up at him in his lantern-light, with a smile that he must have been wearing a long time; his cheek was stiff with it. Once some people who stood near him edged suddenly and fearfully away, and then he suspected himself of having laughed outright.
XI.
COREY put off his set smile with the help of a frown, of which he first became aware after reaching home, when his father asked--
"Anything gone wrong with your department of the fine arts to-day, Tom?"
"Oh no--no, sir," said the son, instantly relieving his brows from the strain upon them, and beaming again. "But I was thinking whether you were not perhaps right in your impression that it might be well for you to make Colonel Lapham"s acquaintance before a great while."
"Has he been suggesting it in any way?" asked Bromfield Corey, laying aside his book and taking his lean knee between his clasped hands.
"Oh, not at all!" the young man hastened to reply. "I was merely thinking whether it might not begin to seem intentional, your not doing it."
"Well, Tom, you know I have been leaving it altogether to you----"
"Oh, I understand, of course, and I didn"t mean to urge anything of the kind----"
"You are so very much more of a Bostonian than I am, you know, that I"ve been waiting your motion in entire confidence that you would know just what to do, and when to do it. If I had been left quite to my own lawless impulses, I think I should have called upon your padrone at once. It seems to me that my father would have found some way of showing that he expected as much as that from people placed in the relation to him that we hold to Colonel Lapham."
"Do you think so?" asked the young man.
"Yes. But you know I don"t pretend to be an authority in such matters.
As far as they go, I am always in the hands of your mother and you children."
"I"m very sorry, sir. I had no idea I was over-ruling your judgment.
I only wanted to spare you a formality that didn"t seem quite a necessity yet. I"m very sorry," he said again, and this time with more comprehensive regret. "I shouldn"t like to have seemed remiss with a man who has been so considerate of me. They are all very good-natured."
"I dare say," said Bromfield Corey, with the satisfaction which no elder can help feeling in disabling the judgment of a younger man, "that it won"t be too late if I go down to your office with you to-morrow."
"No, no. I didn"t imagine your doing it at once, sir."
"Ah, but nothing can prevent me from doing a thing when once I take the bit in my teeth," said the father, with the pleasure which men of weak will sometimes take in recognising their weakness. "How does their new house get on?"
"I believe they expect to be in it before New Year."
"Will they be a great addition to society?" asked Bromfield Corey, with unimpeachable seriousness.
"I don"t quite know what you mean," returned the son, a little uneasily.
"Ah, I see that you do, Tom."
"No one can help feeling that they are all people of good sense and--right ideas."
"Oh, that won"t do. If society took in all the people of right ideas and good sense, it would expand beyond the calling capacity of its most active members. Even your mother"s social conscientiousness could not compa.s.s it. Society is a very different sort of thing from good sense and right ideas. It is based upon them, of course, but the airy, graceful, winning superstructure which we all know demands different qualities. Have your friends got these qualities,--which may be felt, but not defined?"
The son laughed. "To tell you the truth, sir, I don"t think they have the most elemental ideas of society, as we understand it. I don"t believe Mrs. Lapham ever gave a dinner."
"And with all that money!" sighed the father.
"I don"t believe they have the habit of wine at table. I suspect that when they don"t drink tea and coffee with their dinner, they drink ice-water."
"Horrible!" said Bromfield Corey.
"It appears to me that this defines them."