“Glad to see you, Mr. Blacklock”—in his own home he always addressed every man as Mister, just as “Mrs. B.” always called him “Mister Ball,” and he called her “Missus Ball” before “company.” “Come right into the front parlor. Billy, turn on the electric lights.”
Anita had been standing with her head down. She now looked round with shame and terror in those expressive blue-gray eyes of hers; her delicate nostrils were quivering. I hastened to introduce Ball to her. Her impulse to fly passed; her lifelong training in doing the conventional thing asserted itself. She lowered her head again, murmured an inaudible acknowledgment of Joe's greeting.
“Your wife is at home?” said I. If one was at home in the evening, the other was also, and both were always there, unless they were at some theater—except on Sunday night, when they dined at Sherry's, because many fashionable people did it. They had no friends and few acquaintances. In their humbler and happy days they had had many friends, but had lost them when they moved away from Brooklyn and went to live, like uneasy, out-of-place visitors, in their grand house, pretending to be what they longed to be, longing to be what they pretended to be, and as discontented as they deserved.
“Oh, yes, Mrs. B.'s at home,” Joe answered. “I guess she and Alva were—about to go to bed.” Alva was their one child. She had been christened Malvina, after Joe's mother; but when the Balls “blossomed out” they renamed her Alva, which they somehow had got the impression was “smarter.”
At Joe's blundering confession that the females of the family were in no condition to receive, Anita said to me in a low voice: “Let us go.”
I pretended not to hear. “Rout 'em out,” said I to Joe. “Then, take my electric and bring the nearest parson. There's going to be a wedding—right here.” And I looked round the long salon, with everything draped for the summer departure. Joe whisked the cover off one chair, his man took off another. “I'll have the women-folks down in two minutes,” he cried. Then to the man: “Get a move on you, Billy. Stir 'em up in the kitchen. Do the best you can about supper—and put a lot of champagne on the ice. That's the main thing at a wedding.”
Anita had seated herself listlessly in one of the uncovered chairs. The wrap slipped back from her shoulders and—how proud I was of her! Joe gazed, took advantage of her not looking up to slap me on the back and to jerk his head in enthusiastic approval. Then he, too, disappeared.
A wait followed, during which we could hear, through the silence, excited undertones from the upper floors. The words were indistinct until Joe's heavy voice sent down to us an angry “No damn nonsense, I tell you. Allie's got to come, too. She's not such a fool as you think. Bad example—bosh!”
Anita started up. “Oh—please—please!” she cried. “Take me away—anywhere! This is dreadful.”
It was, indeed, dreadful. If I could have had my way at just that moment, it would have gone hard with “Mrs. B.” and “Allie”—and heavy-voiced Joe, too. But I hid my feelings.