"If I don't have tea instantly," said her mother, with profound conviction, as she came ponderously through the portières, tugging at her gloves, "I shall expire! How de do, Mr. Nisbet. Do sit up straight, Dorothy, my dear."
She sank heavily into a low chair, which brought her within the radius of lamp-light at the tea-table, and was thus revealed as a lady of generous proportions, with a conspicuous absence of features, and no observable lap. In speaking, she displayed a marked partiality for undue emphasis. Sublimely unconscious of the depression induced by her advent, she continued to talk, as she pulled off her gloves, which were a size too small, and came away with reluctance, leaving imprints of the stitching on her pudgy pink hands.
Young Nisbet surveyed her with a kind of mute despair. He was a very average young American, very conventionally in love, and the trifling remnant of self-assertiveness which had triumphed over the crescent humility natural to his condition inevitably evaporated into thin air at the approach of Mrs. Rathbawne; and always, as he was doing now, he turned in his toes excessively when she was present, hitched at his right trouser-leg, where the crease passed over his knee, and looked first at her, and then at the floor, and then at her again, with the purposeless regularity of a mechanical toy.
There was a tremendous and highly significant rattling of cups, saucers, and silver spoons, as Dorothy Rathbawne prepared her mother's tea. All things considered, one found something very admirable about Dorothy at such a time as this. It was not complete submission, still less was it open revolt, but savored of both, and was incomparable as an attitude toward Mrs. Rathbawne. On some occasions it was almost as impossible to get on with Mrs. Rathbawne as it would have been, on others, to get on without her. The which, nowadays, is more or less true of all parents. And children.
"Natalie and your Aunt Helen got out at the florist's," went on the good lady, "but I came straight on, and sent the carriage back for them. I felt that I couldn't exist an instant longer without my tea. I'm sure I don't see how Natalie stands it. She was out all morning in the brougham, too. You had best make enough for three cups, Dorothy—and do sit up straight, my dear!—and order Thomas to bring in some more tartines. They are sure to be hungry, and they are apt to come in at any moment."
"That is a family failing," said Dorothy venomously, from behind the kettle.
"Well, I'm sure, my dear," said Mrs. Rathbawne innocently, as she straightened her rings, and picked an imaginary speck out of one of her round, flat nails, "there is no disgrace at all in a healthy appetite. I'm thankful we all have it—though as for your Aunt Helen, hers is about like that of a fly."
"Flies have very good appetites—judging from all I've seen, that is," said Dorothy, "so I don't think she is to be commiserated on that account."
"That was only a figure of speech, my dear," replied Mrs. Rathbawne, with engaging placidity. "Mercy! but I'm glad to get home. We've had a positively exhausting day with Natalie's shopping, and the worst of it is to think what a lot more there is to do. A wedding certainly is an undertaking, Mr. Nisbet."
"Is it?" answered young Nisbet, perceptibly startled at being thus abruptly included in the conversation.