He stopped. He had spoken in a low, quiet voice, but he had conveyed unmistakably the presence of quotation-marks.
"I called on 'em the other night," volunteered Freddy Pratt, unabashedly. His perky little nose was tipped in the air, and his eyes were closed to the two fine slits that denote the complete enjoyment of the smoker. "I wasn't going to stand off. They're at the Northumberland—big name, but not much else. Ragged matting in the halls, and the janitor didn't look very slick. I guess they've rented ready furnished. Mayme was real glad to see me. But he was rather grumpy, I thought."
"Everybody ought always to be glad to see you, Freddy," smiled Walworth, with a caressing irony.
"I suppose," resumed Fairchild, thoughtfully, "that the human family will always go on considering a wedding as a joyous occasion. It always has; it always must—hope springs eternal."
Ogden wondered what other view there might be to take. Everybody had seemed lively and happy enough when Kittie was married.
"But there's the other side—the side that turns to view with a consideration of the complicated relations of a good many new and diverse elements—new people coming in. We had a case in our own family some years ago, when my young cousin married. Poor Lizzie; she is dead now. Her father died six months before her and left a good deal to be divided up. Her husband was trustee for the boy after she herself went, and he made us a good deal of trouble. He had his eye on the estate from the start, and more than his share in the handling of it. There were a good many meetings in lawyers' offices—more trying than the courts themselves. There was a good deal of money lost, and there is a good deal of feeling that will never be got over. He traded on his wife's memory all through. Yet the family welcomed him very cordially and trustfully; we thought the poor girl was going to be so happy. She was; she never knew."
Ogden sighed; this was dismal matter.
"Oh, well," continued Fairchild, resuming his cigar, with an air of passing to lighter topics, "this can't apply here. All of us are happily married or are going to be—"
Freddy Pratt nonchalantly blew an ineffable smoke-ring across the room; Walworth slipped around the table to close the last inch of crack in the door.
"Oh, dear, yes!" he exclaimed.