Part 12 (2/2)
Mrs. Harrigan broke her bread vexatiously. Her husband refused to think for himself, and it was wearing on her nerves to watch him day and night.
Deep down under the surface of new adjustments and social ambitions, deep in the primitive heart, he was still her man. But it was only when he limped with an occasional twinge of rheumatism, or a tooth ached, or he dallied with his meals, that the old love-instinct broke up through these artificial crustations. True, she never knew how often he invented these trivial ailments, for he soon came into the knowledge that she was less concerned about him when he was hale and hearty. She still retained evidences of a blossomy beauty. Abbott had once said truly that nature had experimented on her; it was in the reproduction that perfection had been reached. To see the father, the mother, and the daughter together it was not difficult to fas.h.i.+on a theory as to the latter's splendid health and physical superiority. Arriving at this point, however, theory began to fray at the ends. No one could account for the genius and the voice. The mother often stood lost in wonder that out of an ordinary childhood, a barelegged, romping, hoydenish childhood, this marvel should emerge: her's!
She was very ambitious for her daughter. She wanted to see nothing less than a ducal coronet upon the child's brow, British preferred. If ordinary chorus girls and vaudeville stars, possessing only pa.s.sable beauty and no intelligence whatever, could bring earls into their nets, there was no reason why Nora could not be a princess or a d.u.c.h.ess. So she planned accordingly. But the child puzzled and eluded her; and from time to time she discovered a disquieting strength of character behind a disarming amiability. Ever since Nora had returned home by way of the Orient, the mother had recognized a subtle change, so subtle that she never had an opportunity of alluding to it verbally. Perhaps the fault lay at her own door. She should never have permitted Nora to come abroad alone to fill her engagements.
But that Nora was to marry a duke was, to her mind, a settled fact. It is a peculiar phase, this of the humble who find themselves, without effort of their own, thrust up among the great and the so-called, who forget whence they came in the fierce contest for supremacy upon that tottering ledge called society. The cad and the sn.o.b are only infrequently well-born. Mrs. Harrigan was as yet far from being a sn.o.b, but it required some tact upon Nora's part to prevent this dubious accomplishment.
”Is Mr. Abbott going with us?” she inquired.
”Donald is sulking,” Nora answered. ”For once the Barone got ahead of him in engaging the motor-boat.”
”I wish you would not call him by his first name.”
”And why not? I like him, and he is a very good comrade.”
”You do not call the Barone by his given name.”
”Heavens, no! If I did he would kiss me. These Italians will never understand western customs, mother. I shall never marry an Italian, much as I love Italy.”
”Nor a Frenchman?” asked Celeste.
”Nor a Frenchman.”
”I wish I knew if you meant it,” sighed the mother.
”My dear, I have given myself to the stage. You will never see me being led to the altar.”
”No, you will do the leading when the time comes,” retorted the mother.
”Mother, the men I like you may count upon the fingers of one hand. Three of them are old. For the rest, I despise men.”
”I suppose some day you will marry some poverty-stricken artist,” said the mother, filled with dark foreboding.
”You would not call Donald poverty-stricken.”
”No. But you will never marry him.”
”No. I never shall.”
Celeste smoothed her hands, a little trick she had acquired from long hours spent at the piano. ”He will make some woman a good husband.”
”That he will.”
”And he is most desperately in love with you.”
”That's nonsense!” scoffed Nora. ”He thinks he is. He ought to fall in love with you, Celeste. Every time you play the fourth _ballade_ he looks as if he was ready to throw himself at your feet.”
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