Part 28 (2/2)
”No, no, Madame Therese,” he laughed, ”I'll not rob you of your occupation. I'll put no bungling hand into your concerns. I know a sound piece of timber when I see it; but I should hardly be able to tell a sample of Sea Island cotton from the veriest low middling.”
”Oh, that's absurd, David. Do you know you're getting to talk such nonsense since we're married; you remind me sometimes of Melicent.”
”Of Melicent? Heaven forbid! Why, I have a letter from her,” he said, feeling in his breast pocket. ”The size and substance of it have actually weighted my pocket the whole day.”
”Melicent talking weighty things? That's something new,” said Therese interested.
”Is Melicent ever anything else than new?” he enquired.
They went and sat together on the bench at the corner of the veranda, where the fading Western light came over their shoulders. A quizzical smile came into his eyes as he unfolded his sister's letter--with Therese still holding his arm and sitting very close to him.
”Well,” he said, glancing over the first few pages--his wife following--”she's given up her charming little flat and her quaint little English woman: concludes I was right about the expense, etc., etc. But here comes the gist of the matter,” he said, reading from the letter--” 'I know you won't object to the trip, David, I have my heart so set on it. The expense will be trifling, seeing there are four of us to divide carriage hire, restaurant and all that: and it counts.
” 'If you only knew Mrs. Griesmann I'd feel confident of your consent.
You'd be perfectly fascinated with her. She's one of those highly gifted women who knows everything. She's very much interested in me.
Thinks to have found that I have a quick comprehensive intellectualism (she calls it) that has been misdirected. I think there is something in that, David; you know yourself I never did care really for society.
She says it's impossible to ever come to a true knowledge of life as it is--which should be every one's aim--without studying certain fundamental truths and things.' ”
”Oh,” breathed Therese, overawed.
”But wait--but listen,” said Hosmer, ” 'Natural History and all that--and we're going to take that magnificent trip through the West--the Yosemite and so forth. It appears the flora of California is especially interesting and we're to carry those delicious little tin boxes strapped over our shoulders to hold specimens. Her son and daughter are both, in their way, striking. He isn't handsome; rather the contrary; but so serene and collected--so intensely bitter--his mother tells me he's a pessimist. And the daughter really puts me to shame, child as she is, with the amount of her knowledge. She labels all her mother's specimens in Latin. Oh, I feel there's so much to be learned. Mrs. Griesmann thinks I ought to wear gla.s.ses during the trip. Says we often require them without knowing it ourselves--that they are so restful. She has some theory about it. I'm trying a pair, and see a great deal better through them than I expected to. Only they don't hold on very well, especially when I laugh.
” 'Who do you suppose seized on to me in Vandervoort's the other day, but that impertinent Mrs. Belle Worthington! Positively took me by the coat and commenced to gush about dear sister Therese. She said: ”I tell you what, my dear--” called me my dear at the highest pitch, and that odious Mrs. Van Wycke behind us listening and pretending to examine a lace handkerchief. ”That Mrs. Lafirme's a trump,” she said--”too good for most any man. Hope you won't take offense, but I must say, your brother David's a perfect stick--it's what I always said.” Can you conceive of such shocking impertinence?'
”Well; Belle Worthington does possess the virtue of candor,” said Hosmer amused and folding the letter. ”That's about all there is, except a piece of scandal concerning people you don't know; that wouldn't interest you.”
”But it would interest me,” Therese insisted, with a little wifely resentment that her husband should have a knowledge of people that excluded her.
”Then you shall hear it,” he said, turning to the letter again. ”Let's see--'conceive--shocking impertinence--' oh, here it is.
” 'Don't know if you have learned the horrible scandal; too dreadful to talk about. I shall send you the paper. I always knew that Lou Dawson was a perfidious creature--and Bert Rodney! You never did like him, David; but he was always so much the gentleman in his manners--you must admit that. Who could have dreamed it of him. Poor Mrs. Rodney is after all the one to be pitied. She is utterly prostrated. Refuses to see even her most intimate friends. It all came of those two vile wretches thinking Jack Dawson out of town when he wasn't; for he was right there following them around in their perambulations. And the outcome is that Mr. Rodney has his beauty spoiled they say forever; the shot came very near being fatal. But poor, poor Mrs. Rodney!
” 'Well, good-bye, you dearest David mine. How I wish you both knew Mrs. Griesmann. Give that sweet sister Therese as many kisses as she will stand for me.
Melicent.' ”
This time Hosmer put the letter into his pocket, and Therese asked with a little puzzled air: ”What do you suppose is going to become of Melicent, anyway, David?”
”I don't know, love, unless she marries my friend Homeyer.”
”Now, David, you are trying to mystify me. I believe there's a streak of perversity in you after all.”
”Of course there is; and here comes Mandy to say that 'suppa's gittin'
cole.' ”
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