She looked at him hard, with a certain wonder in her eyes.
"Oh, there's no necromancy about it," he told her. "I've been reading the titles of your books and glancing over your music before you came in. And I can put two and two together. Who are you making fun of to yourself? Who first got off that lovely speech about the refining influence of church?"
She laughed a little, half-uneasily, a brighter color mounting to her smooth oval cheeks. "That's one of Mrs. Bayweather's favorite maxims," she admitted. She added, "But I really do like to go to church."
Mr. Welles felt an apprehension about the turn things were taking. Vincent, he felt sure, was on the verge of being up to something. And he did not want to risk offending Mrs. Crittenden. He stood up. "Thank you very much for telling us about the minister and his wife, Mrs. Crittenden. I think we'll go right along down to the village now, and pay a call on them. There'll be time enough before dinner." Vincent of course got up too, at this, saying, "He's the most perfect old housekeeper, you know. He's kept the neatest flat for himself and that aged aunt of his for seventy years."
"Seventy!" cried Mr. Welles, scandalized at the exaggeration.
"Oh, more or less," said Vincent, laughing. Mr. Welles noticed with no enthusiasm that his eyes were extremely bright, that he smiled almost incessantly, that he stepped with an excess of his usual bounce. Evidently something had set him off into one of his fits of wild high spirits. You could almost feel the electricity sparkle from him, as it does from a cat on a cold day. Personally, Mr. Welles preferred not to touch cats when they were like that.
"When are you going back to the city, Mr. Marsh?" asked Mrs. Crittenden, as they said good-bye at the door.
Vincent was standing below her on the marble step. He looked up at her now, and something about his expression made Mr. Welles think again of glossy fur emitting sparks. He said, "I'll lay you a wager, Mrs. Crittenden, that there is one thing your Ashley underground news-service has not told you about us, and that is, that I've come up not only to help Mr. Welles install himself in his new home, but to take a somewhat prolonged rest-cure myself. I've always meant to see more of this picturesque part of Vermont. I've a notion that the air of this lovely spot will do me a world of good."
As Mr. Welles opened his mouth, perhaps rather wide, in the beginning of a remark, he cut in briskly with, "You're worrying about Schwatzkummerer, I know. Never you fear. I'll get hold of his address, all right." He explained briefly to Mrs. Crittenden, startled by the portentous name. "Just a specialist in gladiolus seeds."
"Bulbs!" cried Mr. Welles, in involuntary correction, and knew as he spoke that he had been switched off to a side-track.