Part 8 (1/2)

”Don't boast. Remember that it's the wicked who stand in slippery places,” said Bea, with meaning. ”But indeed, I am glad you got here.

There is some distorted, goggle-eyed Chinese monster at my elbow, and on the table before me is an ornament which chills the marrow of my bones. I dare not look up.”

Hayden gazed bravely about him. ”I don't think I ever saw such a hideous room in my life,” he said slowly and with conviction.

”There is only one room in the world uglier,” Bea a.s.sured him, ”and that is the dining-room; but they do say that the wall-paper in her bed-room is of a bright scarlet, with large lozenges representing green and blue parrots swinging in gilded cages.”

Hayden laughed and s.h.i.+vered. ”It takes strong nerves,” he said. ”Do you suppose there are people who come often?”

”Oh, dear me, yes,” returned Mrs. Habersham. ”One would dine in Inferno if the food were good. Her table is as perfect as her house and gowns are dreadful, and then Edith herself is very clever and amusing. Here she comes.”

”The cause of this delay,” smiled Mrs. Symmes in pa.s.sing, ”is Mrs. Ames.

I'll give her just one minute more.”

Bea smiled perfunctorily, and then turned on Hayden an alarmed face. ”I never would have come to-day--never, if I had fancied she would be present. She will be sure to launch out on Marcia Oldham before luncheon is over. She never misses an opportunity. She has a mania on the subject.”

Hayden glanced toward the door with curiosity. ”Where is this pepper and vitriol old dame?” he asked, with elaborate carelessness.

”She has not come yet. Did you not hear Edith say that it is she for whom we are waiting? You will see her in a moment, though. She is always late; but she will come, never fear.”

Her words were prophetic, for at that moment Mrs. Ames hurried into the room, a wiry, spare old woman with a small hooked nose and a jaw like a nut-cracker. The skin of her face was yellow and deeply wrinkled, her eyes were those of a fierce, untamed bird, and she was gowned--swathed is the more suitable word--in rusty black with a quant.i.ty of dangling fringes and many jingling chains.

Luncheon was announced immediately after her arrival, and to Hayden's dismay he found that it was served at small tables and that he was placed between Mrs. Ames and Mrs. Habersham, with Horace Penfield opposite smiling in faint satirical glee at the situation.

”I shall never forgive Edith Symmes for this, never,” was Bea's indignant whisper in Hayden's ear. ”But just the same, I shall not give that old witch a chance to air any of her grievances. You'll see. With your help and cooperation I intend to monopolize the conversation.”

Robert hastily a.s.sured her that she could depend on him to the limit of his capacities, and together they seized and held the ball of conversation, occasionally tossing it from one to the other; but never permitting it for a moment to fall into either Penfield's or Mrs. Ames'

hands.

Hayden pottered over this incident or that, dawdling through long-winded tales of travel, and when his recollection or invention flagged Mrs.

Habersham introduced topics so inimical to Mrs. Ames' frequently aired views that this lady rose pa.s.sionately to the fray. Woman's Suffrage, Socialism, the Decline of the Church, Bea, a conservative, flung upon the table and Mrs. Ames pounced upon them as a dog upon a bone, a radical of radicals.

Meantime, Horace Penfield had sat enjoying his luncheon with a cool placidity, and listening with a smile of faint amus.e.m.e.nt to the arguments which surged and eddied about him. He looked for the most part indifferent, although, perhaps, he was only patient.

At last, in an unguarded moment Mrs. Habersham paused for breath, and in the brief ensuing silence Penfield entered the conversation like a thin sharp wedge.

”What a fad those b.u.t.terflies are among you lovely ladies,” he said to Mrs. Habersham. ”But yours are paler than most of them, more opaline.

Why?”

”Because I wear red so frequently,” she replied indifferently. ”The purple and yellow b.u.t.terflies would look horrid with my crimson frocks.”

”I really think,” said Penfield slowly, meeting her eyes with a cool, blank gaze, ”that, saving your presence, Mrs. Habersham, Marcia Oldham has by far the handsomest set I have seen.”

At this red rag, purposely fluttered as Hayden felt before the eyes of Mrs. Ames, that lady sniffed audibly and tossed her head, emitting at the same moment a faint, contemptuous cackle.

”Oh, no,” Bea a.s.sured him with languor, although the scarlet burned in her cheek. ”Marcia's are nothing to compare to Mrs. ----,” mentioning the name of the London actress.

”Oh, I must differ from you.” Penfield was suavely positive. ”I am surprised that you should say that, for Miss Oldham's are quite the most artistic I have seen.”

”Naturally Miss Oldham would have the handsomest set in the market, wouldn't she?” queried Mrs. Ames in what no doubt was intended to be a tone of innocent inquiry.