"Marcia certainly deserves credit," declares Eugene. "She is in her glory. She always did love to manage, and maybe she tries her arts upon Vulcan,—who knows."
"Mr. Wilmarth looks happy," says Violet, with gentle insistence.
"I suppose he is,—happy enough. But the marriage always has been a tremendous mystery to me. I should as soon have thought of the sky falling as Jasper Wilmarth marrying, and that he should take Marcia caps it all. I give it up," declares the young man.
"But Marcia is—I mean she has many nice ways," remarks Violet, as if deprecating harsher criticism.
"Well, for those who like her ways."
"You are not quite——" and Violet pauses.
"Generous or enthusiastic or any of the other womanish adjectives." Eugene pauses, for Marcia comes to meet them and Mr. Wilmarth stands on the porch.
"Well, you have made your appearance at last!" begins Marcia, with an emphasis rendered more decisive from a remark uttered by her husband a few moments before.
"Yes, but you can be thankful that you have us at all," says Eugene, in a tone of lazy insolence. "We only came as representatives of the great family name whose dignity we are compelled to uphold in the absence of the august head of the house."
Jasper Wilmarth hears this and would like to knock down the young man.