Over these attentions Ellen Neal grumbled frequently. "Your pa certainly ain't noticin' much these days, or he'd never let you get so thick with a strange woman we don't know nothin' about, Joan."
"A strange lady, Ellen," corrected Joan with dignity.
"Humph! Lady is as lady does. Look at her face, all painted up like a sign-board!"
"Southern ladies quite frequently rouge," said Joan out of her recent observations; but she did not pursue the subject, for she herself had doubts as to her father's approval of this new acquaintance. Richard Darcy was no democrat. He had been heard frequently to state, as one rather proud of the confession, that he had no use whatever for the canaille (which he pronounced "canile.")
Hence she was a little embarrassed and uneasy when, one Sunday morning as she and her father were starting on their weekly visit to the one bit of his native soil owned so far by Richard Darcy—his wife's grave—a limousine drew up at their door, out of which beamed the face of Mrs. Calloway, beneath a broad pink hat.
"I suspected you'd be off to the cemetery this fine morning," she called out cheerily, "and I thought I'd come and take you, you and your father. Hop right in, both of you. No, it won't be a bit of trouble. I've nothing else to do, and I always did love a cemetery anyway—it's the first place I go to whenever I strike a new town."
Joan glanced nervously at her father, wondering how he would take this initial encounter with Mrs. Calloway. But after a moment's pause of sheer astonishment, the Major's native gallantry came to the rescue, and he advanced for the introduction with all the manner of one about to be presented at court.
They found themselves bowling along at a smart clip among the churchgoers and the more lively joy-riders, out for a Sunday's pleasure, which thronged the avenue that sultry August morning.
"Now isn't this better than a poky old street-car?" demanded Mrs. Calloway archly.
The Major responded in kind. "Undoubtedly! Particularly in the matter of company."