She raised her eyebrows slightly and selected a biscuit.
"You see," said I, "I was horribly late. And when Kittie Provis said, 'Allow me,' and I saw—well, I didn't care," I concluded, lucidly, "because to have every one of your dreams come true, all of a sudden, leaves you past caring."
"It really is funny," she confided to a spoonful of consomme a la
Julienne.
"After almost two years!" sighed I, ever so happily. But I continued, with reproach, "To go without a word—that very day—"
"Mamma—" she began.
I recalled the canary-bird, and the purple shawl. "I sought wildly," said I; "you were evanished. The proprietaire was tearing his hair—no insurance—he knew nothing. So I too tore my hair; and I said things. There was a row. For he also said things: 'Figure to yourselves, messieurs! I lose the Continental—two ladies come and go, I know not who—I am ruined, desolated, is it not?—and this pig of an American blusters—ah, my new carpets, just down, what horror!' And then, you know, he launched into a quite feeling peroration concerning our notorious custom of tomahawking one another—
"Yes," I coldly concluded into Mrs. Clement Dumby's ear, "we all behaved disgracefully. As you very justly observe, liquor has been the curse of the South." It was of a piece with Kittie Provis to put me next to Aunt Marcia, I reflected.
And mentally I decided that even though a portion of my assertions had not actually gone through the formality of occurring, it all might very easily have happened, had I remained a while longer in Liege; and then ensued a silent interval and an entree.
"And so—?"
"And so I knocked about the world, in various places, hoping against hope that at last—"