Part 24 (1/2)

”So sad!” murmured Mrs. Ivy. ”I hope young Mr. Dillingham won't do anything desperate. To think of his cup of happiness being dashed from his lips--”

The two young men looked at each other and laughed.

”Don't worry about Dill, Mater. He has more than one cup to fall back on. It is old man Sequin that may do something desperate. I hear they have made no end of a row, but Margery holds her own.”

”They say on the street,” said Decker, ”that Mr. Sequin has been counting on the Dillinghams' money to reinforce the bank. He's been going it pretty heavy the last two years.”

”One cannot live by bread alone,” quoted Mrs. Ivy; ”our friends have been living the material life, they have forgotten that they are but stewards, and as stewards will be held accountable for the way they use their wealth. Mrs. Sequin makes absolutely no effort to advance the progress of the world. She has refused from the first to join the A.T.L.A. and she is not even a member of the Woman's Club.”

”Well, I hope Mr. Sequin hasn't been playing with Don Morley's money,”

said Decker, resuming the subject from which Mrs. Ivy had flown off at a tangent. ”Donald has always left everything to him, and doesn't know anything more about his investments than I do. All he is concerned with is spending his income, and that keeps him busy.”

At this moment Norah appeared with fresh tea and cakes, making her way with some difficulty through the labyrinth of red lamps, small tables, foot-stools and marble-crowned pedestals that crowded the room.

”Ah!” cried Mrs. Ivy, ”here are some of the little cakes, Gerald, that you love. You will try one, won't you? We have the greatest time tempting his appet.i.te, Mr. Decker. He can only eat what he likes. I have always contended with his father that there was some physical cause for his craving sweets. I never refused them to him when he was a child.

But from the time he was born he has never really lived on food, he has lived on music.”

Gerald, at the moment regaling himself with his second cake, gave evidence that he did not rely solely on the sustaining power of music.

”And now, will you excuse me, dear Mr. Decker?” asked Mrs. Ivy, gathering her lavender skirts about her. ”I am a very, very busy woman, and my desk claims much of my time. You will come to us again, won't you? Gerald's friends, you know, are my friends. _Good_-by.” And with a tender pressure of the hand, and a lingering look she was gone.

Gerald waited until the door was closed, then produced cigarettes which he proffered to Decker.

”Mater's last hobby is tobacco,” he smiled indulgently. ”She is going to abolish it from the universe. Do you remember how Doctor Queerington used to hold forth on the subject at the university?”

”By the way, your mother tells me he has married again. I don't know why, but that tickles me. Was she a widow?”

Gerald with his elbows on the arms of his chair and holding his teacup with both hands just below the level of his eyes, looked suddenly gloomy.

”No,” he said. ”I wish to Heaven she was one!”

”What's the matter with Old Syllogism? I always thought he was a rather good sort.”

”I'm not thinking about him!” Gerald said impatiently. ”I am thinking of the girl. She can't be much older than I am and the most exquisite thing you ever beheld. Her coloring is absolutely luminous. She ought to be painted by Besnard or La Touche or some of those French chaps that make a specialty of light. She positively radiates!”

”How did she ever happen to marry the Doctor?”

”Heaven knows! He captured her in the woods somewhere. I don't suppose she had ever seen a man before. Jove! You ought to see her play tennis, and to hear her laugh. She's a perfect wonder, as free and easy as one of the boys, but straight as a die. Doesn't give a flip for money or clothes, or society. Did you ever hear of a really pretty girl being like that?”

”I hope Doctor Queerington likes her as well as you do.”

”Heavens, man! everybody likes her; you can't help it. But n.o.body understands her. You see they look on her as a child; they haven't the faintest conception of what she is going through.”

”And you think you have?”

”I know it. She's trying to adjust herself, and she can't. She's finding out her mistake and making a game fight to hide it. When she first came she went in for everything. She had never played tennis or golf, and she got more fun out of learning than anybody I ever saw. Then suddenly she stopped. Some old desiccated relative told the Doctor it didn't look well for his wife to be running around with the young people, and that settled it. She gave up like an angel, and she's not the kind that likes to give up either. Now her days are devoted to the heavy domestic, and her evenings to improving her mind in the Doctor's stuffy old study.”

”Talking to the Doctor,” confessed Decker, ”always affected me like looking at Niagara Falls; grand, and imposing and awe-inspiring, but a little goes a long way. How is she standing it?”

”Getting thinner and paler and prettier every day. She's a country girl, you know, used to horses, and outdoor exercise. She must have been beastly homesick, but she's game through and through. It was awfully hard for her to bluff at first. That's because she is so honest. But she has had to learn. No woman, good or bad, can get through life without learning to bluff, only it comes harder for the good ones. What's that confounded racket in the street?”