“Frothingham?” said Gilson, in the reading-room undertone. “Those adventurers are always crazy about themselves.”
“No—it was—Edward—Allerton!” As he hesitated on the name the attendant shot his big head forward; at the climax he jerked it back, regarding the artist with delighted eyes.
“You don’t say so!” exclaimed Gilson, and then they had a fit of silent laughter.
“Don’t give me away,” cautioned the attendant.
By nine o’clock the next night there was not a member of the Beacon Street set, whether living in Boston or in Brookline and the other fashionable suburbs, who had not heard the news; and the mails were carrying it to those at a distance. And wherever it was repeated there was the same result—derision, pretended contempt of such vulgar snobbishness, expressions of wonder that an Allerton had descended to such low trafficking. Of course none dared tell the Stauntons and the Allertons or Frothingham. But Frothingham, who saw everything through that monocle of his, noted the covert smiles that now peeped at him, the grins and nudgings and cranings when he and Cecilia Allerton appeared in public together.
One of the many rules which Mr. Allerton had ordained for the guidance of his household in the lines he regarded as befitting the establishment of a gentleman of family and tradition was that Cecilia must be at the half-past seven o’clock breakfast with her father. Usually he did not speak after his brief, formal salutation—a “Good-morning, Cecilia,” and a touch of his dry, thin lips to her forehead. But he might wish to speak, and it would be a grave matter if he should wish to speak and no one were there for him to speak to. Besides, he always gave his orders at breakfast—his comments on the shortcomings in the servants, or in Cecilia’s housekeeping; his criticisms of her conduct. These “breakfasts of justice” were not held often, because Cecilia made few mistakes, and the maids—Allerton kept no men servants but a coachman—had been long in the family service, and had therefore been long cowed and trimmed and squeezed to the Edward Allerton mould for menials. But when a “breakfast of justice” was held it was memorable.
Toward the end of the second week of Frothingham’s Boston sojourn Mr. Allerton laid aside his paper at breakfast and looked at Cecilia. Agnes, the second waitress, who always attended at breakfast, understood the signal, and at once left the room, closing the door behind her. Cecilia gave a nervous little sigh, dropped her eyes, and put on the pale, calm expression behind which she hid herself from her father.
“You were at Dr. Yarrow’s lecture yesterday afternoon, I believe?” Allerton began.
Cecilia’s nerves visibly relaxed as she noted that his voice was not the dreaded voice of justice. “Yes, sir,” she replied.
“It was on the evidences of communication with the spirit world, was it not?”