"Yes, Grandma. But not very well."
Madam Bowker glanced triumphantly at Arkwright; he was gazing amazedly at Margaret.
"You see, Grant," said Roxana, with her foolish, pleasant laugh, "there is nothing in it."
"In what?" asked Margaret innocently, emptying the hot water from her cup.
"In the story of your engagement, dear," said her mother.
"Oh, yes, there is," replied Margaret with a smiling lift of her brows. "It's quite true." Then, suddenly drawing herself up, she wheeled on Grant with a frown as terrible as her grandmother's own. "Be off!" she said imperiously.
Arkwright literally shrank from the room. As he reached the door he saw her shiver and heard her mutter, "Reptile!"
CHAPTER XI
MADAM BOWKER HEARS THE NEWS
In the midst of profound hush Madam Bowker was charging her heavy artillery, to train it upon and demolish the engagement certainly, and probably Margaret, too. Just as she was about to open fire callers were ushered in. As luck had it they were the three Stillwater girls, hastily made-over Westerners, dressed with great show of fashion in what purported to be imported French hats and gowns. An expert eye, however, would instantly have pierced the secret of this formidable array of plumes and furbelows. The Stillwaters fancied they had exquisite taste and real genius in the art of dress. Those hats were made at home, were adaptations of the imported hats—adaptations of the kind that "see" the original and "go it a few better." As for the dresses, the Stillwaters had found one of those treasures dear to a certain kind of woman, had found a "woman just round the corner, and not established yet"—"I assure you, my dear, she takes a mental picture of the most difficult dress to copy, and you'd never know hers from the original—and SO reasonable!"
In advance came Molly Stillwater, the youngest and prettiest and the most aggressively dressed because her position as family beauty made it incumbent upon her to lead the way in fashion. As soon as the greetings were over—cold, indeed, from Madam Bowker, hysterical from Roxana—Molly gushed out: "Just as we left home, Josh Craig came tearing in. If possible, madder than a hatter—yes—really—" Molly was still too young to have learned to control the mechanism of her mouth; thus, her confused syntax seemed the result of the alarming and fascinating contortions of her lips and tongue—"and, when we told him where we were going he shouted out, 'Give Rita my love.'"