She threw a look of passing reference towards her husband, who made a little bow in return.
"—and I had the good luck to get a lot on Bellevue Place—one of the last left, and only a block from the Lake Shore drive. Then I went to Mr. Atwater, and he has made my house a perfect little dream! I thought it best to have him to dinner once or twice, and I'm glad I did--he's been so interested all through. There hasn't been the least hitch to speak of, and I expect to get in within a fortnight. This," she went on, turning to Ogden with an undiminished vivacity, "is really my P. P. C."
Ogden glanced at the husband of the lady whose use of the first person singular was so frank and continuous. He was a young man with a pleasant and amiable face, and that face was set in a meek little smile, from whose forced lines the element of deception was most pitifully lacking.
"Yes, Abbie dear," Mrs. Valentine went on, "I'm afraid it's good-by—or nearly the same thing." She took the girl's hand within her own and gave it repeated pats in a rather careless and self-absorbed way. "I shall try to see you often, of course; but it will be so far. How nice it would be if you could only come up there and settle down right next door to me."
Ogden sighed unconsciously. He had fancied the first rays of social illumination as falling upon this benighted family; but it was only the last faint glow of a Speeding twilight, after all.
Abbie withdrew her hand with a quiet dignity; she seemed to put but a moderate value on these protestations.
"I believe we are satisfied where we are, Fanny," she said in a low and even tone. "We have always lived here; we feel more at home in this house than we could anywhere else. All our—all our—friends are near us"—a desolate little blush came in here—"and then there's the church and everything. I've heard my sis—I'm told that the North Side is very pleasant on some accounts, but I don't think we are likely ever to change."
"Change!" called her father, suddenly. "I wouldn't live anywhere else if you paid me to. What's better than this?"
"So attached," murmured her mother, vaguely.
Mrs. Valentine continued for some time further to flutter her hands, her clothing, and her conversation, but she was very slow about getting up and fluttering away. She was a neighbor, and her return home was a matter of three minutes. Ogden's return was a matter of nearly an hour, and he left first. He carried away the discontented feeling of a young man whose aim in the direction of a young woman is frustrated by the presence of uncongenial elders and irrelevant outsiders. He had been quite certain of his ability to meet Abbie Brainard after the bank episode without any particular embarrassment or restraint; certainly he had come to view with more interest a girl whose hand had lain in his and whose head had rested on his shoulder. There had been no embarrassment in her greeting of him; her manner had been as straightforward and sensible as it always was. But never mind; he should try again; he was only too certain of soon finding her alone.