“Sanford ... raised her hand to his lips”
It was delightful to note how the coming alliance of the Hardy and Slocomb families had developed the paternal, not to say patriarchal attitude of the major toward his once boon companion. He already regarded Jack as his own son,—somebody to lean upon in his declining years, a prop and a staff for his old age. He had even sketched out in his mind a certain stately mansion on the avenue, to say nothing of a series of country-seats,—one on Crab Island in the Chesapeake,—all with porticoes and an especial suite of rooms on the ground floor; and he could hear Jack say, as he pointed them out to his visitors, “These are for my dear old friend Major Slocomb of Pocomoke,—member of my wife’s family.” He could see his old enemy, Jefferson, Jack’s servant, cowed into respectful obedience by the new turn in his master’s affairs, in which the Pocomokian had lent so helpful a hand.
“She is the child of my old age, so to speak, suh, and I, of co’se, gave my consent after great hesitation,” he would frequently say, fully persuading himself that Helen had really sought his approbation, and never for one moment dreaming that, grateful as she was to him for his chaperonage of her while in New York, he was the last person in the world she would have consulted in any matter so vital to her happiness.
Jack accepted the change in the major’s manner with the same good humor that seasoned everything that came to him in life. He had known the Pocomokian for too many years to misunderstand him now, and this new departure, with its patronizing airs and fatherly oversight, only amused him.
Mrs. Leroy had drawn the young girl toward the divan, and was already discussing her plans for the summer.
“Of course you are both to come to me this fall, when the beautiful Indian summer weather sets in. The Pines is never so lovely as then. You shall sail to your heart’s content, for the yacht is in order; and we will then see what this great engineer has been doing all summer,” she added, glancing timidly from under her dark eyelashes at Sanford. “Mr. Leroy’s last instructions were to keep the yacht in commission until he came home. I am determined you shall have one more good time, Miss Helen, before this young man ties you hand and foot. You will come, major?”
“I cannot promise, madam. It will depend entirely on my arrangin’ some very important matters of business. I hope to be able to come for perhaps a day or so.”
Jack looked at Sanford and smiled. Evidently Mrs. Leroy did not know the length of the major’s “day or so.” Nor that it was apt to depend upon the date of the next invitation. He was still staying with Jack, and had been there since the spring.
Buckles, the butler, had been bending over the major as that gentleman delivered himself of this announcement of his hopes. When he had filled to the brim the tiny liqueur glass, the major—perhaps in a moment of forgetfulness—said, “Thank you, suh,” at which Buckles’s face hardened. Such slips were not infrequent. The major was, in fact, always a little uncomfortable in Buckles’s presence. Jack, who had often noticed his attitude, thought that these conciliatory remarks were intended as palliatives to the noiseless English flunky with the immovable face and impenetrable manner. The Pocomokian never extended such deference to Sam, Sanford’s own servant, or even to Jefferson. “Here, Sam, you black scoundrel, bring me my hat,” he would say whenever he was leaving Sanford’s apartments, at which Sam’s face would relax quite as much as Buckles’s had hardened. But then the major knew Sam’s kind, and Sam knew the major, and, strange to say, believed in him.