Part 7 (1/2)
She was rocking gently back and forth in the shade of the cool stone porch, when the sound of footsteps at last reached her ears, and she looked up with the warm smile of a guest who knows she is always welcome.
”Elizabeth! This is a very great pleasure. I thought you had forgotten me!”
”You deserve to be forgotten, my dear friend. Ah, now you've disarmed me, though. I've just conscience enough to have to tell you that I've come this time with ulterior motives.”
”I can find fault with no motives of yours, so long as they prompt you to visit me. I look forward to my little chats with you as a child looks forward to his Sat.u.r.day treats.”
”My dear Tom, your gift of saying delightful things is one of the wonders of the age. Here you never see a woman from one year's end to the other, and yet you can turn a compliment as charmingly as though you practised on the fairest in the land every evening of your life.”
”'In my youth, said the Father----'” quoted the old gentleman with a twinkle. ”However, let's hear your ulterior motives first, my dear Elizabeth, so that afterwards we can chat with unburdened minds.”
”No--no, I refuse to beard you until we have some tea. Thank goodness, here's William bringing it now. I took the liberty of ordering it, Tom.”
”You took no liberties at all--you merely a.s.sumed your privileges.
Tut-tut! Tea. You women, with all your notions and your injurious habits--how very delightful it is to be near you!”
”To hear you talk, Tom, how could _anyone_ suspect that you were a man of principles!” cried Miss Bancroft. ”How could anyone dream that you were hard, and austere and--and unimaginative!” He looked at her in mild astonishment.
He was a small old man, rather delicate in build, with the blunt broad hands of a worker, and a high, smooth, ma.s.sive forehead, from which his perfectly white hair fell back, long and almost childishly soft and fine. His eyes, set deep under the sharply defined bone of his projecting brow, wore the gentle, far-away expression noticeable in many near-sighted people; but his chin contradicted their softness, and there was a hint of obstinacy in his close-set mouth and rather long upper lip. He was dressed negligently, and indeed almost shabbily, and he made no apologies for his appearance; since he never gave a thought to it himself, he could not consider what other people might think of it. His greatest hobby, lingering with him from earlier years, was chemistry, and he spent virtually all his time in the laboratory which he had fitted up in one of the odd towers that decorated his house.
His coat and trousers would have given a far less observant person than Sherlock Holmes a clue to this favorite occupation of his, stained and burned as they were with acids.
”Do you eat your _dinner_ in those clothes?” demanded Miss Bancroft.
”Why? What's the matter with them? Why not eat dinner in 'em? My dear Elizabeth, surely at this late date you haven't taken it into your head to reform my habits?”
”I don't know but that I have,” replied Miss Bancroft with a touch of grimness.
”Is that your ulterior motive? I suspected it. Tell me what you meant when you accused me just now of being hard and austere and unimaginative. Why unimaginative?”
”No really intelligent woman would ever try to explain anything so subtle to a man. I mean that you are unimaginative because you allow yourself to be rigid----”
”Rigid? Rigid about what?”
”About your principles. I like you, Tom--you know how much. I admire you more than any man I have ever known, and I have known a good many remarkable men. But one thing I cannot forgive you is your principles.”
”My principles? When did I ever offend you with principles?”
Miss Bancroft poured herself another cup of tea, and laid a second piece of bread-and-b.u.t.ter neatly on the side of her saucer.
”Come,” said Mr. Prescott, with a keen glance at her. ”Come, it's not like you, Elizabeth, to beat about the bush. What can this matter be which you find so difficult to broach in plain English?”
Miss Bancroft hesitated a moment. It touched her vanity to be accused of beating about the bush, since she took an especial pride in her reputation of being a woman who never minced matters, and who always made a direct and fearless attack.
Then she said, simply:
”I came to talk to you about--George's daughters, Tom.”
There was a short silence.
”It's not like you, Elizabeth, to--to touch upon a matter so very delicate,” remarked Mr. Prescott, quietly, his lips tightening slightly. ”Of course I can understand how my att.i.tude in regard to them must appear to you, but I fancied that there existed between you and me a silent agreement that this was one subject which was never to be mentioned.”
”My dear Tom, you know that under ordinary circ.u.mstances I am not an interfering woman; therefore you must realize that I should never have spoken of this to you without the best of reasons for doing so. But I feel that you are allowing certain principles, excellent no doubt in themselves, but wrong in your particular application to them, to thwart your own happiness; to say nothing of depriving others of the advantages which it is in your power to bestow.” Miss Bancroft was very serious now. As she spoke she leaned over and laid her fat little hand earnestly on the old man's shabby sleeve. He said nothing, and she continued: