In this capacity, therefore, he blundered on. “Yes, indeed—right next door! Old Dan may look like the steady, plodding homebody sort of husband, but when that type really breaks out it’s the wildest of all.”
Lena gave the farceur a sidelong glance the sobriety of which he failed to perceive; but at once she seemed to fall in with the spirit of his burlesquing, and, assuming a mock solemnity herself, “This is terrible news!” she said. “I suspected him of being rather wild, but I didn’t suppose he’d go so far as to appoint an enchantress to be the godmother.”
“And not only appointed her, but called on her in the middle of the night to notify her of the appointment,” Fred added. “Not only that, but dragged me along to be a chaperon!”
“No! Did he? How funny!”
“The way he behaved when we got there, I think he needed one!” the youth continued, expanding in the warmth of her eagerly responsive laughter. “We did get oratory! He explained to the enchantress that she was the only person who could understand his son’s being a god and the meaning of the universe; but that wasn’t all. Oh, not by any means!”
“But he couldn’t have done worse than that!” she laughed. “Are you sure?”
Fred was so overcome by mirthful recollection that he was unable to retain his affectation of solemnity;—a sputtering chuckle escaped him. “I wish you’d been there to hear him telling Martha he wanted Henry Daniel to grow up to be like her!”
“No! Did he?”
The jovial Frederic failed to catch the overtone in her voice, but happening to glance at Harlan, who sat opposite him, he was surprised, too late, by a brief pantomime of warning. Harlan frowned and pointedly shook his head; and at the same time Mrs. Oliphant, across whom the merry colloquy had taken place, began hastily to talk to Fred about his health. His mother had told her that he was ruining it at the club, she said amiably, and, to his mystification, became voluble upon the subject; but she also was too late. Lena continued to laugh, and, turning to Mr. Oliphant, prattled cheerily about nothing;—but Harlan saw her covert glance at the other end of the table where her husband was still bragging of Henry Daniel; and, although her eyelids quickly descended upon it, this glance was an evanescent spark glowing brightly for an instant through the fringe of blackened lashes.
When the party left the table to prepare for the charades—the customary entertainment offered to one another by the Oliphants on such occasions—Frederic sought an opportunity to speak privately with Harlan.