“As soon as you have rested a little, I would like to talk with you about an important matter.”
“I am rested now. Bath, shave and clean clothes always rest a man, that is,—well, do not expect me to do any talking. I’ve been closeted, at different times today, with half a dozen men,—each one trying to put through some scheme.”
“Poor boy! This is a scheme of Aunt Katherine’s, but for our good, not hers, and especially for Cathalina’s benefit. If my experience with Cathalina today is at all suggestive, Auntie’s idea isn’t bad.”
Instead of taking chair and paper, then, Mr. Van Buskirk stretched out upon a couch not far from the windows, and while he closed his eyes and held his wife’s hand as if her nearness rested him, Sylvia outlined Aunt Katherine’s plan for sending Cathalina to a girls’ school.
They had not talked long when the children appeared. Philip at seventeen was already taller than his father. Slender, dark-eyed, his dark brown hair cut in the latest fashion, he looked quite the dandy in his evening clothes. Cathalina, dressed as a little girl rather than a young lady, wore a lacy white frock, simple and pretty.
“There is your Aunt Knickerbocker, I think,” said Philip Senior, rising quickly as the bell rang. “Go to meet her yourself, Phil; she’ll appreciate the attention.” But Philip had already started to the hall.
“Home again, my dear boy!” was Aunt Katherine’s brisk greeting. Philip welcomed her warmly and started to unfasten the wrap which she had worn in the machine.
“You are an improvement on the maid, Philip, and much better looking. No, I’ll not go upstairs, thank you,” and turning, Aunt Katherine stood a moment before a mirror in the hall, put back a wisp or two of silvery hair, patted her white laces and shook out the folds of her clinging black silk draperies. A maid who had just appeared in answer to Philip’s summons, waited a moment in the background, then vanished as Mrs. Knickerbocker entered the room and greeted her advancing host and hostess.
Tall and erect was Aunt Katherine, with well cut features, mouth a little wide, perhaps, nose a trifle long, but well shaped. Nothing could look more uncompromising than that straight, Van Buskirk back; nothing could be more cutting on occasion than a few of her quiet, well directed remarks. But no one in the connection was more respected and generally beloved for her wisdom, good, common sense and real, unselfish kindness.
She put an arm around Cathalina and as Phil had done in the morning, turned up the delicate face to look at it. Soft lights by this time had been turned on, and shone through Cathalina’s hair, making a sort of halo around her face. Her eyes, however, twinkled up into Aunt Katherine’s with a glance more human than angelic.