Part 27 (1/2)
”b.u.t.termilk!” Alice cried triumphantly.
”And I walked four miles this morning in a rubber suit and three sweaters, _and_ gained half a pound,” Nora declared disconsolately.
”I do wish hips would come in again,” Alice Harrington sighed. ”Ah, here come the men,” she said more brightly, as the three entered.
Michael was still bearing, with what modesty he could, the encomiums on a purple punch he had brewed after exhaustive laboratory experiments.
”It's delicious,” Denby declared.
Michael sighed. ”I used to think so until my wife stopped my drinking.”
Even Monty seemed cheered by it. ”Fine stuff,” he a.s.serted. ”I can feel it warming up all the little nooks and crannies.”
”Purple but pleasing,” Denby said, with the air of an epigrammatist.
”Did they tell you any purple stories?” Michael's wife demanded.
”We don't know any new stories,” Denby told her; ”we've been in England.”
”Do sit down, all of you,” Alice commanded. ”We've all been standing up to get thin.”
”If they're going to discuss getting thin and dietetics,” Michael said, ”let's get out.”
”Woman's favorite topic,” Monty remarked profoundly.
”But you mustn't sit down, Alice,” Nora warned, as her hostess seemed about to sink into her chair. ”It isn't twenty minutes!”
”Well, I think it is twenty minutes,” she returned smiling, ”and if it isn't I don't care a continental.”
”Women are so self-denying,” Michael Harrington observed with gentle satire.
”And sometimes it pays,” his wife said. ”Do you know, Nora, there was a girl on the boat who lost twelve pounds.”
”Twelve pounds,” Michael exclaimed, and then by a rapid-fire bit of mental arithmetic added: ”Why, that's sixty dollars. How women do gamble nowadays!”
”Pounds of flesh, Michael, pounds of flesh. She was on a diet. She didn't eat for three days.”
”That's not a bad idea,” Nora said approvingly. ”Sometime when I'm not hungry I'll try it.”
Ethel Cartwright had refrained from joining in the conversation for the reason she had no part just now in their lighter moods. Their talk of weight losing had been well enough, but Michael's misinterpretation of the twelve pounds brought back to her the cause of Amy's misfortune and plunged her deeper into misery.
She walked toward the window and looked over the gra.s.s to the deep gloom of the cedar trees opposite. And it seemed to her that there were moving shadows that might be Taylor and his men ready to pounce upon a man to whom a year ago she had been deeply drawn. There was a charm about Denby when he set himself to please a woman to which she, although no blus.h.i.+ng ingenue, was keenly sensible.
”Seeing ghosts?” said a voice at her elbow, and she turned, startled, to see his smiling face looking down at her.
She a.s.sumed a lighter air. ”No,” she told him brightly. ”Ghosts belong to the past. I was seeing spirits of the future.”
”Can't we see them together?” he suggested. ”I shall never tire of Parisian ghosts if you are there to keep me from being too scared. Let's go out and see if the moon looks good-tempered. The others are talking about smuggling and light and airy nothings like that. Shall we?”
”No, no!” she said, with a tremor in her voice that did not escape him.