Every one laughed. Mrs. Kip, however, had made her remark in perfect good faith.
The entrance of Walter Willoughby completed the party, and lunch was announced. When the meal was over, and they came back to the parlor, they found Félicité in waiting with Petie Trone, Esq. Félicité, a French woman with a trim waist and large eyes, always looked as though she would like to be wicked. In reality, however, she was harmless, for one insatiable ambition within her swallowed up all else, namely, the ambition not to be middle-aged. As she was forty-eight, the struggle took all her time. "I bring to madame le petit trône for his promenade," she said, as, after a respectful salutation to the company, she detached the leader from the dog's collar.
"Must that fat little wretch go with us?" Chase inquired, after the maid had departed.
For answer, Ruth took up Mr. Trone and deposited him on her husband's knee. "Yes; and you are to see to him."
"Is the squirrel down here too?" inquired Walter. "I haven't seen him."
"Robert the Squirrel—" began Chase, with his hands in his trousers pockets; then he paused. "That's just like Robert the Devil, isn't it? I mean an opera, ma'am, of that name that they were giving in New York last winter," he explained to Mrs. Franklin, so that she should not think he was swearing.
"Robert the Devil will do excellently well as a nickname for Bob," said Dolly. "It's the best he has had."
"Well, at any rate, Robert the Squirrel isn't here," Chase went on. "He boards with Mr. Hill for the winter, Walter; special terms made for nuts. And, by-the-way, Hill, you haven't mentioned Larue; how is the senator? I'm keeping my eye on him for future use in booming our resort, you know. The Governor of North Carolina remarking to the Governor of South Carolina—you've heard that story? Well, sir, what we propose now is to have the senator from North Carolina remark to the senator from South Carolina (and to all the other senators thrown in) that Asheville is bound to be the Lone Star of mountain resorts south of the Catskills."
Lilian Kip's heart had given a jump at Larue's name; to carry it off, she took up a new novel which was lying on the table. (For Chase's order had been a perennial one: "all the latest articles in fiction," pursued Mrs. Franklin hotly, month after month.) "Oh, I am sure you don't like this," said Lilian, when she had read the title.
"I have only just begun it," answered Mrs. Franklin. "But why shouldn't I like it? It is said to be original and amusing."