Part 4 (1/2)

”There will be on the sideboard in the dining-room a perpetual dish of magnificent fruit, marble, realistic to a degree. You know the kind.”

”And you could stand by and let them--you and Leslie!” spoke Brenda, in an astonishment almost seriously reproachful.

”My dear,” Leslie took up their common defense, ”one's feeling in this case is: What does it matter? A little more, a little less.... It all goes together. When they have those curtains, they might as well have that fruit.”

”At the same time, my dear children, let me tell you that the effect is not displeasing,” insisted Mrs. Foss. ”Such at least is my humble opinion. In its way it's all right. They are people of a certain kind, and they have bought what they like, not what they thought they ought to like. Thousands of people, if it were not for you artists perverting them, would be thinking a marble lemon that you can't tell from a real one a rare and dear possession. These people haven't known any artists.

They are innocent.”

”They're awfully good fun,” Leslie started loyally in to make up for anything she had said which might seem to savor of mockery or dispraise.

”One enjoys being with them, if they aren't our usual sort. They are in good spirits, really good--good spirits with roots to them. And that's such a treat these days!”

From which it was supposable that Leslie had been living in circles where the gaiety was hollow. The suggestion did not escape Gerald. But, then, Leslie, just turned twenty-four, was rather given to judging _these days_ as if she remembered something less modern, an affectation found piquant by her friends in a particularly young-looking, blond girl with a short nose. Gerald might have hoped that her sigh meant nothing had not Leslie, awake to the implication of her remark as soon as she had made it, gone hurriedly on to call attention away from it.

”Yes, it's pleasant to be with them. It's a change. The world seems simple and life easy. Life _is_ easy, with all that money. Besides, Mrs. Hawthorne really is something of a dear. After all, if people make much of one, one is pretty sure to like them. Haven't you found it so, Gerald?”

”I don't know. I am trying to remember if there is anybody who has made much of me.”

”_We_ have made much of you.”

”And don't think I temperately like you. I adore you all, as you well know. You're the only people I do. By that sign there has been n.o.body else kind enough to make much of me.”

”You're so bad lately, Gerald; that's why,” Mrs. Foss affectionately chide him. ”You never go anywhere. You neglect your friends. What have you been doing with yourself? Is it work?”

”No; not more than usual. I work, but I'm not exactly absorbed--obsessed by it. I don't know--” He seemed to search, and after a moment summed up his vague difficulties: ”It seems a case for quoting 'Hamlet.'” He was bending forward, his elbows resting on his knees, as they could do easily, his chair being low and his thin legs long. His thin, long hands played with that slender cane of his, which he had set down and taken up again, while he tried to recall the pa.s.sage, and mumbled s.n.a.t.c.hes of it: ”'This goodly firmament--congregation of vapors--Man delights not me--no, nor'--the rest of it.”

”But it won't do, Gerald dear; it won't do at all,” Mrs. Foss addressed him anxiously, between scolding and coaxing. ”Shake yourself, boy! Force yourself a little; it will be good for you. _Make_ yourself go to places till this mood is past. What is it? Bad humor, spleen, hypochondria? It doesn't belong with one of your age. We miss you terribly, dear. Here we have had two of our Fridays, and you have not been. And we have always counted on you. Charming men are scarce at parties the world over. The Hunts have begun their little dances, too.

One used to see you there. And at Madame Bentivoglio's. She was asking what had become of you. Promise, Gerald, that we shall see you at our next Friday! We want to make it a nice, gay season. Will you promise?

Oh, here's Lily. Why didn't you tell us, Lily, that Gerald had come to see us when we were out?”

A long-legged, limp-looking little girl with spectacles had come in. A minute before she had been pa.s.sing the door on her way to walk, and catching the sound of a male voice in the drawing-room, insisted upon listening till she had made sure whose it was. At the name Gerald she had pulled away from her governess and burst into the drawing-room.

She stood still a moment after this impulsive entrance, and the governess turned toward Mrs. Foss a face that, benign and enlightened though it was, called up the memory of faces seen in good-humored German comic papers. The expression of her smile said to the company that she was guiltless in the matter of this invasion. Could one use severity toward a little girl who suffered from asthma and weak eyes?

Lily, after her pause, went half shyly, half boldly to Gerald. He did not kiss her,--she was ten years old,--but placed an arm loosely around her as she stood near his knee.

”Did you forget it, Lily?”

”No, Mother, I didn't forget, but I never thought to speak of it. You didn't tell me to, did you, Gerald?”

”No, we had so much else to talk about. Well, Lily, have you decided what color the uniform must be for our orphanage? The thing is important. It makes a great difference in an orphan's disposition whether she goes dressed in a dirty gray or a fine, bright apricot yellow.”

”Gerald,”--Lily lowered her voice to make their conversation more private,--”will you be the cuckoo?” As he gazed, she went earnestly on: ”We can't find anybody to do the cuckoo. I am going to be the nightingale. Fraulein is going to be the drum. Leslie is going to be the _Wachtel_. Mother is going to be the triangle. Brenda will play the piano. Papa says that if he is to take part he must be the one who sings on the comb and tissue-paper. But I am afraid to let him. You know he hasn't a good ear. That leaves the cuckoo, the comb, and the rattle still to find before we can have our _Kinder-sinfonie_. Which should you like to be, Gerald?”

”What an opening for musical talent! But, my dear little lady, I'm not a bit of good. I can't follow music by note any more than a cuckoo. I am so sorry.”

”But, Gerald, all you have to do is--”