Part 29 (1/2)

This hood is rather a new wrinkle, though, isn't it? I suppose it's for a voyage, and you pull it up over your head when you come through the corridor back to your stateroom. We shall have to go to Europe, Lucy.”

_Mrs. Fountain_: ”I would go to Asia, Africa, and Oceanica, to escape another Christmas. Now if there are any more bath-robes-- Come in, Maggie.”

VIII

MAGGIE, THE FOUNTAINS

_Maggie_, bringing in a bundle: ”Something a District Messenger brought. Will you sign for it, ma'am?”

_Mrs. Fountain_: ”You sign, Clarence. If I know anything about the look and the feel of a bundle, this _is_ another bath-robe, but I shall soon see.” While she is cutting the string and tearing the wrappings away, Fountain signs and Maggie goes. Mrs. Fountain shakes out the folds of the robe. ”Well, upon my word, I should think there was conspiracy to insult you, Clarence. I should like to know who has had the effrontery-- What's on it?”

_Fountain_, reading from the card which had fallen out of the garment to the floor: ”'With Christmas greetings from Mrs. Arthur J. Gibby.'”

_Mrs. Fountain_, dropping the robe and seizing the card: ”_Mrs._ Arthur J. Gibby! Well, upon my word, this _is_ impudence. It's not only impudence, it's indelicacy. And I had always thought she was the very embodiment of refinement, and I've gone about saying so. Now I shall have to take it back. The idea of a lady sending a bath-robe to a gentleman! What next, I wonder! What right has Mrs. Gibby to send you a bath-robe? Don't prevaricate! Remember that the truth is the only thing that can save you. Matters must have gone pretty far, when a woman could send you anything so--intimate. What are you staring at with that paper? You needn't hope to divert my mind by--”

_Fountain_, giving her the paper in which the robe came: ”Seems to be for _Mrs._ Clarence Fountain.”

_Mrs. Fountain_, s.n.a.t.c.hing it from him: ”What! It is, it is! Oh, poor dear Lilly! How can you ever forgive me? She saw me looking at it to-day at Shumaker's, and it must have come into her head in despair what else to get me. But it was a perfect inspiration--for it was just what I was longing for. Why”--laughing hysterically while she holds up the robe, and turns it this way and that--”I might have seen at a glance that it wasn't a man's, with this lace on and this silk hood, and”--she hurries into it, and pulls it forward, looking down at either side--”it's just the right length, and if it was made for me it couldn't fit me better. What a joke I _shall_ have with Lilly, when I tell her about it. I sha'n't spare myself a bit!”

_Fountain_: ”Then I hope you'll spare me. I have some little delicacy of feeling, and I don't like the notion of a lady's giving me a bath-robe. It's--intimate. I don't know where you picked up your girl friends.”

_Mrs. Fountain_, capering about joyfully: ”Oh, how funny you are, darling! But go on. I don't mind it, now. And you may be glad you've got off so easily. Only now if there are any more bath-robes--” A timid rap is heard at the door. ”Come in, Maggie!” The door is slowly set ajar, then flung suddenly wide open, and Jim and Susy in their night-gowns rush dancing and exulting in.

IX

JIM, SUSY, THE FOUNTAINS

_Susy_: ”We've caught you, we've caught you.”

_Jim_: ”I just bet it was you, and now I've won, haven't I, mother?”

_Susy_: ”And I've won, too, haven't I, father?” Arrested at sight of her father in the hooded bath-gown: ”He does look like Santa Claus, doesn't he, Jimmy? But the real Santa Claus would be all over snow, and a long, white beard. You can't fool _us_!”

_Jim_: ”You can't fool _us_! We know you, we know you! And mother dressed up, too! There isn't any Mrs. Santa Claus, and that proves it!”

_Mrs. Fountain_, severely: ”Dreadful little things! Who said you might come here? Go straight back to bed, this minute, or-- _Will_ you send them back, Clarence, and not stand staring so? What are you thinking of?”

_Fountain_, dreamily: ”Nothing. Merely wondering what we shall do when we've got rid of our superst.i.tions. Shall we be the better for it, or even the wiser?”

_Mrs. Fountain_: ”What put that question into your head? Christmas, I suppose; and that's another reason for wis.h.i.+ng there was no such thing. If I had my way, there wouldn't be.”

_Jim_: ”Oh, mother!”

_Susy_: ”No Christmas?”

_Mrs. Fountain_: ”Well, not for disobedient children who get out of bed and come in, spoiling everything. If you don't go straight back, it will be the last time, Santa Claus or no Santa Claus.”

_Jim_: ”And if we go right back?”

_Susy_: ”And promise not to come in any more?”