IV
It was nearly eight o’clock, and Hughes was suffering acutely from hunger. He walked up and down, and up and down, the library, smoking his pipe, and raging inwardly.
“Please don’t bother!” he had urged Mrs. Dexter.
And she had said: “Oh, but it’s no bother at all! Mimi and I really enjoy getting up a dainty little dinner!”
They were in the kitchen now. He could hear the egg-beater whirring, and, at intervals, their light, agreeable voices, always so good-tempered and affectionate toward each other. They had been at it for hours; they must be exhausted. Every fifteen minutes or so he had appeared in the kitchen doorway, to suggest, to plead, almost desperately:
“Look here! I wish you wouldn’t! I wish you’d come out of there! Anything will do, you know, any little simple thing—”
But they would not come out. They only laughed at him.
“I wish I could make her see how wasteful and foolish it is to give all this time and effort to a meal!” he thought. “This idea that everything must be so elaborate and ‘dainty.’ Why, good Lord! I’d rather have bread and cheese—”
Bread and cheese! He thought of a slice of homemade bread with a piece of Swiss cheese lying upon it. He had had nothing to eat since twelve o’clock. Bread and cheese! How he longed for that! And how he appreciated the plain and simple life which provided meals of no matter what sort at reasonable hours!
It came into his mind that he would go upstairs and see his Aunt Kate again. Just see her. He didn’t want to talk to her; simply, it was a comfort to know that she was there, his ally. She felt as he did; their ideals were the same. Plain, sensible people.
He went out of the library and began to mount the stairs. A miserable little jet of gas burned in the lower hall, and another one on the landing, and they both sang a sad little piping tune. The house seemed vast, this evening, a place of black shadows and chilly silence, and many closed, menacing doors.
He thought of Mrs. Dexter’s flat, with its homemade furniture and its pathetic brightness. This was, of course, a fine, solid old house, and the flat was a cheap and paltry thing. A girl would be glad, wouldn’t she, to leave such a place, to leave the noise and dust of the city, and come here?
Of course there was this unaccountable malady which had attacked first himself and now Mrs. Boles. But it had left him overnight, and she, too, would no doubt be quite recovered in the morning. An odd sort of cold, that was all it was.
He knocked upon the door, and Mrs. Boles called “Come in!” and in he went. The gas was turned low, and by the dim light the room looked remarkably cheerless. Mrs. Boles lay flat on her back, her gray hair in two braids, like an Indian, her gaunt, weather-beaten face immobile, her eyes staring straight before her.
“Desborough!” she said, without turning her head.
He waited, thinking she was going to go on, but she said nothing further.
“How are you feeling now?” he asked.
She didn’t trouble to answer that.
“Desborough!” she exclaimed. “It’s malaria. I thought so yesterday, and now I know it. You’ve got to get out of here. It’s a nasty, unwholesome place.”
“But perhaps—” said her nephew, terribly crestfallen.
“There’s no ‘perhaps’ about it,” she declared sharply. “I know all about malaria.” She was silent for a moment; then her brows drew together in a severe frown.[Pg 406]
“That girl!” she remarked. “Just look at that!”
He looked where she pointed, and there, on the chair, he saw a tray. The antique china, the lace handkerchiefs—A great pain seized his heart.
“Mi—Miss Dexter—” he began.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Boles. “She brought me some tea. And just look how she fixed up that tray!”
Anger arose in him. He wouldn’t listen to a word against Mimi.
“It seems to me Miss Dexter has—” he began again, but once more Mrs. Boles interrupted him.
“I never in my life had any one take so much trouble for me,” she announced. “Bread—cut out star-shaped. Her own little handkerchiefs. No, I never.”
She paused, and across her grim face came a smile the like of which he had not seen there before.
“The bonnie wee thing!” she said.
“What!” cried Hughes. “What! I mean—why did you say—that?”
“It suits her,” said Mrs. Boles. “Her mother was talking to me to-day. She told me that there was an old professor—a Mr. MacAllister—”
“MacAndrews,” Hughes explained.
“You’ve heard about him, then. Well, it seems to me—” Once more she paused. “As soon as I told Mrs. Dexter that this was malaria, and we ought to leave here, they both invited me to visit them. Both of them—without an instant’s hesitation. She told me about their flat in the city—and their life. They’re not at all well off, but they’re happy.
“They know how to live!” Mrs. Boles continued. “Kind, gracious people. They know how to live. Any one could see that. They make every detail—this tray, for instance. Desborough, it’s been a revelation to me!”
“Er—yes—” her nephew said absently. “Well, I’d better go downstairs, now, and—and see if I can help them. What? What did you say?”
“I said—you’d better get them to help you!” Mrs. Boles explained.