CHAPTER X
"I really could not help being late, Esther! I tried to hurry them but
Mrs. Lewis was there. You know what she is!"
Mrs. Coombe sank gracefully into a veranda chair. Out of the corners of her eyes she cast a swift glance at the face of her step-daughter and, as the girl was not looking, permitted herself a tiny smile of malicious amusement. She was a small woman but one in whom smallness was charm and not defect. Once she had been exceedingly pretty; she was moderately pretty still. The narrow oval of her face remained unspoiled but the small features, once delicately clear, appeared in some strange way to be blurred and coarsened. The fine grained skin which should have been delicate and firm had coarsened also and upon close inspection showed multitudes of tiny lines. Her fluffy hair was very fair, ashy fair almost, and would have been startlingly lovely only that it, too, was spoiled by a dryness and lack of gloss which spoke of careless treatment or ill health, or both. Still, at a little distance, Mary Coombe appeared a young and attractive woman. The surprise came when one looked into her eyes. Her eyes did not fit the face at all; they were old eyes, tired yet restless, and clouded with a peculiar film which robbed them of all depth. Curiously disturbing eyes they were, like windows with the blinds down!
If her eyes were restless, her hands were restless too and she kept snapping the catch of her hand-bag with an irritating click as she spoke.
"I know I ought to have been here when the doctor called to see Amy," she went on, "but I could not get away. Mrs. Lewis talked and talked. That woman is worse than Tennyson's brook. She makes me want to scream! I wonder," musingly, "what would happen if I should jump up some day and scream and scream? I think I'll try it."
"Do!"
"What did Doctor Paragon-what's-his-name say about Amy?"
"He thinks we have been treating Aunt Amy wrongly. He thinks she should be humoured more. His name is Callandar."
"Callandar? What an odd name! It sounds half-familiar. I must have heard it somewhere. There is a Dr. Callandar in Montreal, isn't there? A specialist or something."
"I think this is the same man. But if it is he, doesn't want it known. He is here for his health, and he has never taken the trouble to correct the impression that he is a beginner working up a practice. I thought so myself at first."