“But there is no family plate and what there is will be out in the shop and not in my bedroom. Our bedroom, I should say, as I think Elizabeth will be spending the summer with me,” laughed Josie. “I’m never afraid and besides I carry a small automatic for emergencies.”
“You do? How amusing!” said Mrs. Markle, who had stayed on through the afternoon in spite of the fact that she had declared she had only a moment and wanted to see Mary Louise on some important matter which she forgot to divulge. She had been very charming and the young men, one and all, as Billy McGraw expressed it, “fell for her.”
“Don’t forget you are coming to call on us,” she said to that young man, sweetly. “I want you and Mr. Markle to know each other. You are sure to like each other. I know you think I am foolish, but my husband is such a dear.”
“Foolish because your husband is a dear?”
“I mean foolish to talk about it. I know it is not the thing in this day and generation for the wife to be too much in love with her husband, but I am hopelessly old-fashioned.”
“You evidently don’t know Dorfield, Mrs. Markle. It seems to be the style here for wives to be very fond of their husbands, but, of course, Dorfield is a million years behind the times, thank goodness!”
“It is lovely to see a young man who feels that way about things. So many young men are inclined to be facetious on the subject. Sometimes they seem to think I am not worth talking to because I am so unfeignedly devoted to my husband. Of course, I could have a much gayer time if I could disguise my feelings, but I can’t do it. They seem to think that, because Mr. Markle is so much older than I am, I must not be sincere in my protestations of affection. How absurd they are!”
“Your protestations?”
“No, I mean the young men.”
Now the above conversation sounds very silly when put down in cold print, but when it was carried on by a wonderful beautiful young woman with a voice that thrilled one down the spinal cord with a certain rich cello quality, eyes that were so deep and glorious that Billy in looking in them had a kind of feeling he must catch hold of something to keep from falling in, and withal a friendly, sweet, girlish grace, it did not seem at all silly to Billy McGraw. He forgot all about what a nice girl Elizabeth Wright was and how he had fully intended to ask her to go to the next dance with him, forgot why he had been asked to have lunch at the Higgledy-Piggledy Shop, forgot everything but how extremely lovely Mrs. Markle was and what a lucky dog her old husband was. Never having met that gentleman, he pictured him as tottering on the brink of the grave.