II
GYPSIES!
THE Williams boy, a well-built little man of eleven, was a healthy, riotous animal, keen, fluent and right-minded—but he had not been “promoted.” Blynn had found this out in an accidental meeting with the lad. The result was a regular Wednesday afternoon visit at the boy’s home with a new sort of “lessons,” and many tramps down Cresheim creek and up the Wissahickon—the core of the method—where instruction was part of the game.
Blynn had the teacher’s gift of presenting unknown regions of knowledge with all the allurements of advertisement of seaside estates. He aroused interest, a desire to explore, a proper pride in achievement; and, above all, hope. He never complained of stupidity, nor expressed the least impatience with slowness; so in this way he ever stirred up latent or lost personal faiths. Within a few months the Williams boy was ready to pass into the next grade and do himself credit; unless the well-intentioned but narrow school dames of the Hall should petrify his interest and with daily croakings cut off all communication.
Gorgas was standing in the fine old doorway of her home when he came out of the Williams’ gate. He waved to her cheerfully; she saluted gravely in return, one lift of the hand, as the Roman stage-senators do. When he came forward eagerly, his severe face alight with interest, she stood watching him without motion. That was a characteristic of Gorgas which she had possessed as a baby and which she maintained all her life; it gave charming dignity to her later years; active at one moment as the famous imps below, the next moment rigid as a wax-work, yet thunderingly alive, a fawn struck into silence, listening.
Not until he stood beside her did she move. Then abruptly she thrust out a hand.
“How do you do, Mr. Blynn,” she smiled an absurd, artificial smile, the perfect mask of a hostess. “Won’t you sit down? It’s awful good of you to call.”
“Wie geht’s, milady?” he bowed in perfect understanding of the game. “Excuse! I haff been talking zee Cherman Sprache mit dot Wilhelm’s poy und I cannot get back to English for several minuten after-varts, afterwarts—afterwards—there! My tongue’s free. ’Raus mit ihm! Gesundheit! How are you? Schreckliches Wetter—I mean, sticky weather, isn’t it?”
They had reached the living room by this time. A glance about had not revealed Mrs. Levering or the older daughter. No doubt, they would be forthcoming later.
“The weather is rather depressing,” she drawled. The tone struck him as decidedly familiar; but when she opened her large eyes and blinked deliberately at him twice, and then drew a languid hand across one cheek and fidgeted a moment in her chair, as if to distribute an imaginary “bustle,” it came to him with a rush that she was picturing Mrs. Williams, whom he had just left.
Blynn squeezed down into his chair, thrust his head into his neck, puffed out his cheek, a recognizable portrait of Mr. Williams, and growled.