Abner bowed. Surely it was a favour, and appreciation was no more than his due.
"I only wish you could have seen your way to being as nice to poor Mrs. Pence. I overheard her—didn't I?—asking you once more to call. Weren't you rather non-committal? Were you, strictly speaking, quite civil?"
"I was as civil as those silly, chattering people round her would let me be—that niece of hers and the rest. I'm sure I was careful to ask after her Training School."
"Oh, that's what made her look so dazed!"
"Why should it?" asked Abner, his spoon checked in mid-air.
"She could hardly have expected such an inquiry from you. Haven't I heard that you threw her down on this training-school idea, and threw her down pretty hard too, the very first time you met her? She wanted help, sympathy, encouragement, suggestions, and instead of that you gave her the—the marble heart, as they say. You made her feel so feeble and flimsy——"
"Did I?" asked Abner gropingly. Eudoxia loomed before him in all her largeness.
"You did. She was disposed to be a noble, useful worker, but now it seems as if she might drop to the level of a mere social leader. Do, please, treat Mrs. Whyland more considerately. She means to arrange quite a nice little programme, and it will be no disadvantage to you to take part in it. Mr. Bond will read one or two of his travel-sketches, and I may do a little something myself—a bit in the way of music, perhaps."
"H'm," said Abner. "Travel-sketches?" He ignored the promise of music.
"With folk-songs on the violin."