He was (as Redfield had said) highly susceptible, made so by his solitary life in the mountains, and to be seated close beside this maid of the valley stirred his blood to the danger-point. It was only by an effort of the will that he kept in touch with Redfield’s remarks.
“Enderby never can grow accustomed to his democratic neighbors,” Redfield was saying. “He’s been here six years, and yet when one of his cowboy friends tells him to ‘go to hell’ he’s surprised and a bit offended.”
“Oh, it isn’t that,” explained Mrs. Enderby; “it’s to have your maids say ‘All right’ when you ask them to remove the soup. It’s a bit shocking also to have your cook or housemaid going about the house singing some wretched ditty. What was that one, Charley, that Irma Maud sang till we were nearly wild (Irma Maud was my chambermaid). What was it? Something about ‘Tixey Ann.’”
“Oh, I know it perfectly!” exclaimed Enderby. “‘If you want to make a niggah feel good—’”
“No, no; that’s another one.”
Redfield interposed. “You wouldn’t have them go about in sullen stealth, would you? Think how song lightens their drudgery.”
“Ah yes; but if it drives the family out-of-doors?”
“It shouldn’t. You should take it all as a part of the happy world of democracy wherein even the maid-servant sings at her toil.”
“But our democratic neighbors are all the time coming to look round the place. We’ve no privacy whatever. On Sunday afternoon they drive through the grounds in procession; you’d think our place a public park and we the keepers.”
In all this banter Virginia was given the English viewpoint as to Western manners and conditions. She perceived that the Enderbys, notwithstanding their heavy-set prejudices, were persons of discernment and right feeling. It certainly was impertinent of the neighbors to ride through the grounds as if they were public, and Mrs. Enderby was justified in resenting it.