CHAPTER THREE
THE SUITOR WITH CREDENTIALS
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IT was a filial duty, as well as a wifely duty, to meet Gilbert’s train. He wished them all to do so, he liked to see these three charmingly dressed, feminine creatures all looking for and expecting him. But he never showed this; he always wore the distracted and annoyed expression of a tremendously busy man snatching a little time for his family.
He got off the train in his rather clumsy way, and they started toward him, when the sight of Mr. MacGregor following him, bag in hand, changed their politely eager smiles to looks of consternation.
Gilbert kissed them all perfunctorily, and then brought forward his companion.
“I’ve brought Mr. MacGregor down with me,” he announced. “I hope the place isn’t crowded.”
“It isn’t,” said Andrée. “I don’t see why it should be. I don’t see anything to bring crowds of people here, I’m sure.”
“Hush, Andrée!” murmured her mother, and bestowed a gracious and expressionless smile upon the visitor. “I’m sure there’ll be a room for Mr. MacGregor. Hadn’t we better get into the bus now? It’s waiting, you know!”
All the way to the hotel she was quite perfect; she told Mr. MacGregor about Andrée’s difficulties in practising, she was gay, in a formal, stereotyped way; when they arrived she arranged with the landlady for a room, even went about, picking him out a nice one. Then they all sat on the veranda for an hour or so, in the terrific heat, looking out over the sun-scorched lawn and the dusty road, and the motionless fir trees, and talked more. It was not an altogether successful conversation; Andrée was perverse and wilfully tactless, Edna was frankly indifferent, and Gilbert very garrulous. He wished to talk about the wholesale rubber business, and he did.
Then it was time to dress for dinner and they all went upstairs. The door into the girls’ room was locked, and Gilbert sat down, prepared for a more confidential talk, and an accounting of Claudine’s expenditure. But she attacked him at once, with a fiercely restrained wrath.