Part 24 (2/2)
Miss Boutts blushed and tossed her head. ”He called on me and sent me flowers,” she said, in innocent triumph. ”I was so sorry to miss him.
All the girls are fearfully jealous.”
”Do you like him?” asked Isabel, absently.
”Well--a little. He is new, and English, and different. There's not much to choose from here, and I don't know any of the swells in San Francisco. I can't say he is my ideal--that has always been an immensely tall man with big blue eyes and a tawny moustache; and Mr. Gwynne is just a sort of blond, no color in his hair at all, and I never did care much for gray eyes. He's tall enough, and the girls think him 'distinguished,' but n.o.body could call him big. Besides, he doesn't know how to say sweet things one little bit. I went out on the veranda with him at your party, and it was a heavenly night, and all he asked me was if I wasn't afraid of catching cold, and then he wandered on about American girls exposing themselves foolishly and wearing too thin shoes and eating too many sweets. Fancy a man talking like that to a girl at night on a veranda! I never felt so flat.”
Isabel glanced curiously at the beautiful empty creature. Her black eyes looked like wells of sentiment, and her body a mould for a new race of men.
”Tell me,” she exclaimed, impulsively. ”What do you expect a man to do under such circ.u.mstances--to--a--kiss you?” She brought out the last with some effort, her old-fas.h.i.+oned training suddenly suggesting that she could better understand the downfall of the girl she had befriended in Paris than the vulgarities of the shallow.
Miss Boutts laughed amusedly. ”Well, most men would have tried it. I never was one to make myself common, but once in a while--well! I haven't much opinion of a man who wouldn't s.n.a.t.c.h a kiss from a girl he admired to death, when he got a chance.” She turned upon Isabel, curious in her turn. ”Of course you are lots older than I am--twenty-five or six, aren't you? And I am only just eighteen. But I always used to watch and wonder about you before you went away. I knew you were not the least bit like the other girls. I wonder what it is like to be different from other people. I always feel just like everybody else.”
”So do I,” said Isabel, encouragingly. ”It was only circ.u.mstances that made me appear different.”
”But you know so much!” sighed Miss Boutts. ”You speak a lot of languages, and you took all the honors at the High School--and then all those years in Europe! I wonder Mr. Gwynne will even look at any of us.”
”Men like your sort much better,” said Isabel, dryly. ”Do be nice to him to-day, and entertain him in your own style while I dig through those tiresome books. I sha'n't be long.”
Gwynne looked more than hospitable as he ran down the veranda steps to a.s.sist his guests out of the high buggy. When they had taken off their dust-cloaks and stood side by side he reflected that he had seldom seen two such handsome girls together. Isabel was far more simply dressed than Miss Boutts, but her little black jacket fitted perfectly, and there was a touch of pale blue at the neck, and in the lining of her large black hat, that deepened the blue of her eyes under their heavy black brows and lashes. Gwynne had never seen her look so girlish and ingenuous. She kept her profile from him and he saw only her smiling eyes and red half-opened mouth.
”I had to telephone to make sure you would be at home,” she said. ”They say I mustn't come out here alone, and I didn't want Miss Boutts to be bored while I was at work. I'll leave you two here on the porch. That will be quite proper.”
As she nodded and went into the living-room she saw Gwynne turn to the lovely glowing girl left on his hands, with more intensity than she had seen him display since Mrs. Kaye took her black eyes and fine bust out of his life. As she made herself comfortable in his deepest chair she heard the girlish shallow voice launch out into a eulogy of the scenery.
Gwynne responded with some enthusiasm; for a time there was a broken duet, and then the feminine voice settled down to a steady monologue.
Miss Boutts knew that it was an American girl's business to be animated, entertaining, amusing, especially with Englishmen, who hated effort.
Occasionally there was a masculine rumble, with a growing accent of desperation, and the indulgent little bursts of laughter diminished in frequence and spontaneity. Isabel lifted down volume after volume of the books on farming her uncle had collected, letting one fall, rattling leaves when leaves would rattle. An hour pa.s.sed. She appropriated Gwynne's writing materials and took what appeared to be copious notes.
The host suddenly excused himself and came within.
”Won't you have tea?” he demanded. ”It is rather early, but after that drive--”
”Much too early,” said Isabel, absently. Her chin was on her hand, her eyes were on a spotted page. ”Mariana is sure to be asleep. Do go back to Dolly. She is one of those girls that can't bear to be left alone. I didn't bring her out here to be bored.”
”Didn't you? What on earth do you want of all those notes? Are you going to write a treatise?”
”Of course not. Do go back.”
Gwynne returned to the veranda. For more than another hour that sweet nasal monotonous voice trilled on. Then it began to flag. Then a silence ensued, broken at first by sporadic and staccato remarks, then becoming as dense as the silences of the night. Again Gwynne invaded his living-room.
”Isabel!” he said, in a low tense tone.
Isabel looked up dreamily and encountered a haggard face and a pair of blazing eyes. ”I'll never forgive you!” he whispered.
”For what?”
”For what! Do you want to drive me mad? Take her home!”
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