"It is too provoking," she said; "I wish Douglas would wake up and scream his very loudest. I was just on the point of asking Ida to go with me into the garden to pick sweet peas, when Mr. Beam hands her that horrible bunch of wild flowers, crammed full of botany, I've no doubt. And now just look at them! Before one could say a word, there they are on that bench, heads together, and pulling the weeds to pieces. Think of it! Studying botany with him, and Mr. Tippengray on the same lawn with her!"
"Oh, he's too hot to teach anything," said Lodloe. "You don't seem to approve of Mr. Beam's attentions to that young woman."
"I do not," said she. "You know what he is as well as I do."
"Better," said Lodloe. For a moment he paused, and then continued: "Mrs. Cristie, I wish you would let me go into the garden with you to pick sweet peas and to talk about Mr. Beam."
"Mr. Beam!" she repeated.
"Yes," said Lodloe; "I wish very much to speak to you in regard to him, and I cannot do it here where we may be interrupted at any moment."
As a young and pretty woman who knew her attractions, and who had made resolutions in regard to the preponderance of social intercourse in a particular direction, Mrs. Cristie hesitated before answering. But as a matron who should know all about a young man who was paying very special attention to a younger woman in her charge, she accepted the invitation, and went into the garden with Lodloe.
The sweet pea-blossoms crowded the tall vines which lined one side of a path, and as she picked them he talked to her.
He began by saying that he had noticed, and he had no doubt that she had noticed, that in all the plain talk they had heard about Mr. Beam there had been nothing said against his moral character except that he did not pay his debts nor keep his promises. To this Mrs. Cristie assented, but said that she thought these were very bad things. Lodloe agreed to this, but said he thought that when a young man of whom even professional slanderers did not say that he was cruel, or that he gambled, or drank, or was addicted to low company and pursuits, had determined to reform his careless and thoughtless life, he ought to be encouraged and helped in every possible way. And then when she asked him what reason he had to suppose that Mr. Beam had determined to reform, he straightway told her everything about Lanigan, Chicago oats and all, adding that the young man did not wish him to say anything about this matter, but he had taken it upon himself to do so because Mrs. Cristie ought to know it, and because he was sure that she would not mention it to any one. When Mrs. Cristie exclaimed at this, and said that she thought that the sooner everybody knew it the better, Lodloe told her of the state of affairs between Calthea Rose and Lanigan Beam, and why the latter did not wish his reform to be known at present.
Mrs. Cristie dropped upon the ground every sweet-pea blossom she had gathered.