It was for Kitty that Felix had been on the lookout ever since the guests began to arrive, and no sooner did her rosy, beaming face appear behind that of her husband, than he pushed his way through the throng to reach her side. “No, not out here, Mistress Kitty,” he cried. Had she been of royal blood he could not have treated her with more distinction. “You are to stand alongside of Masie when she comes in; the child has no mother, and you must look after her.”
“No mother! Mr. O'Day! God rest your soul, she won't need to do without one long, she's that lovely. There'll be plenty will want to mother, and brother her, too, for that matter. My goodness, what a place ye made of it! Look at them lamps, all fireworks up there, and that big chair! I wonder who robbed a church to get it! Well—well—-WELL! John! did ye ever see the like? Otto, ye ought to rent this place out for a chowder-party ball. Well, well, I NEVER!”
The comments of some of the others, while they voiced their complete surprise, were less enthusiastic. Bundleton, after shaking hands with Felix and Kitty, and then with Kling, dropped his wife and made a tour of the room without uttering a sound of any kind until he reached Felix again, when he remarked gravely: “I should think it would worry you some to keep the moths out of this stuff,” and then passed on to tell Kling he must look out “them lamps didn't spill and set things on fire.”
Porterfield, as was to be expected, was distinctly practical. “Awful lot of truck when you get it all together, ain't it, Mr. O'Day? I was just tellin' my wife that them two chairs up t'other side of the room wouldn't last long in my parlor, they're that wabbly. But maybe these Fifth Avenue folks don't do no sittin'—just keep 'em in a glass case to look at.”
Pestler was more discerning. He had come across an iridescent glass jar, and was edging around for an opportunity to ask Kling the price without letting Felix overhear him—it being an occasion, he knew, in which Mr. O'Day would feel offended if business were mentioned. “Might do to put in my window, if it didn't cost too much,” he had begun, and as suddenly stopped as he caught Felix's eyes fastened upon him.
There were others, however, whose delight could not be repressed. Tim Kelsey, after the proper greetings were over, had wandered off down the room, stopping to examine each article in its place on the walls. Finally some pieces of old Delft caught his eye. He made a memorandum of two in a little book he took from his inside pocket, and later on, when a break in the surrounding conversation made it possible, remarked to Felix: “They seem to get everything in the new Delft but the old delicious glaze. On a wall it doesn't matter, but you don't feel like putting real old Delft on a wall. I like to stroke it, as I would a friend's hand.”
These inspections and comments over, and that peculiar timidity which comes over certain classes lifted out of their customary environment and doing their best to become accustomed to new surroundings having begun to wear away under the tactful welcome of Felix, and the hour having arrived for the grand ceremony of gift-giving, the throne was pushed back, Masie called from behind her screen, and O'Day's wicker basket filled with the presents was laid by the side of the big chair.
Kling and Kitty were now beckoned to and placed on the left of the throne, Felix taking up his position on the right.
The stir on the platform caused by these arrangements soon attracted everybody's attention and a sudden hush fell upon the room. What was about to happen nobody knew, but something important, or Mr. O'Day would not have stepped to its edge, nor would Otto have been so red in the face, nor Kitty so radiant.
Felix raised his hand to command supreme silence.