The next day Mrs. Barry telephoned to half a dozen of her son's girl friends and invited them to come to a sewing-bee and help with the curtains for her cottage. She said that Miss Melody was visiting her and that she would like them to know her. So they all came, wild with curiosity to see the girl that their own Ben had kidnapped and who was going to make him forget them; and Geraldine won them all by her modesty and naturalness. The fact that Ben's mother had accepted her gave her courage in the face of this bevy who had grown up with her lover from childhood. They were too uncertain of the exact status of affairs between the beautiful stranger and their old friend to speak openly of him to her, but almost every reminiscence or subject of which they talked led up to Ben. Of course, some among the six pairs of eyes leveled at Geraldine had a green tinge, and there were some girlish heartaches; and when the chattering flock had had their tea and cakes and left for home, there were certain ones who discussed the impossibility of there being anything serious in the wind.
Ben was not even at home. Would he have gone away for an indefinite time as his mother said he had done, if he was as engrossed in the girl as gossip had said? Had not that very gossip proceeded from the humble walls of Miss Upton's shop where the stranger had apparently found her level? The Barrys had always held such a fine position, etc., etc., etc.
"Oh, but," said Adele Hastings, "that girl is a lady. Every movement and word proves it."
"Besides," added another maiden, "her being humble wouldn't have anything to do with it. It never has, from the time of King Cophetua on."
"Well," put in the poor little girl with the greenest eyes of all, "I think it is very significant that Ben has gone away. You notice Mrs. Barry didn't invite her to come until he had gone, and that common Mrs. Whipp called her by her first name. I heard her myself."
On the whole, Geraldine had scored, and really, although she was at peace with the whole world, the fact of Mrs. Barry's approval dwarfed every other opinion and event; for it meant that no longer need she set up a mental warning and barrier against thoughts of her lover.
A few days afterward Ben telephoned to have Lamson at the station at a certain hour, and he and Pete returned from their strange quest. Little he dreamed of the stir that telephone message caused in his home.
All the way out to Keefe on the train he was planning interviews with his mother and wondering whether the seed he had dropped into her mind before leaving had borne fruit. He had promised Geraldine not to coerce her, and the girl's pride he knew would not submit to opposing his mother's wish. Therefore, when Mrs. Barry walked out on the piazza to meet him, it was a very serious son that she encountered.
"What is the matter, Benny?" she asked as she kissed him. "Have you failed?"
"No, indeed. I have succeeded triumphantly. I've got Carder in a box, and, believe me, he won't try to lift up the lid and let anybody see him."