“Drinking? Do you mean that they were intoxicated?”
“No, not exactly that; but they had a couple of cocktails while I was there.”
“Is that all? Oh, dear me! Daniel, you are SO old-fashioned. Your ideas don't change a single mite. In Trumet a cocktail is a dreadful thing; but here it isn't. Why, everybody drinks a cocktail before dinner. The Blacks always have them. There were cocktails at that dinner at their house.”
“I know there was, but I didn't see you drinkin' yours, Serena.”
His wife hesitated. “No,” she admitted rather reluctantly, “I didn't. I've been temperance all my life and somehow I couldn't bring myself to do it. I hope Annette didn't think it was bad manners, but I just couldn't somehow. Perhaps I ought to have tried—”
“Tried! My soul and body, Serena! Don't talk that way. If I see you startin' in to drink cocktails I shall begin to think the world's comin' to an end. SOMETHIN' will come to an end right then and there, I'll tell you that! The first cocktail you drink will be the signal for me to clear decks for action. There's some things I WON'T stand, and that's one of 'em!”
“There, there! Don't get excited! I shan't begin at my time of life. But I shan't be narrow, either. I don't want you to be. If all you've got against Cousin Percy is that he drinks a cocktail once in a while I think you'd better get over it as soon as you can. He does help me, Daniel, in my Chapter work and all the rest of it, and I'd like to have him stay here at present. Now won't you be nice and obliging, same as you usually are, and let him stay, for my sake? You will, won't you, dear?”
Captain Dan said that he would, and yet he said it with considerable inward reluctance. There was no real reason why he should have distrusted Percy Hungerford. At least he could think of none in particular. His distrust was based upon generalities and a knowledge of human nature acquired during his years of knocking about among men. His wife's words made an impression. If what she said was true, his conscience told him that he should be kind and generous in his attitude toward the literary person. But—well, the “but” was still there.
It was his intention to seek out Fenholtz and ask a few questions concerning Cousin Percy, but the opportunity did not offer itself, and shortly after the reception the Fenholtzes left for the South, where they were to spend the winter. So that source of information was cut off.
During the next fortnight the captain's sense of desertion and of being almost a stranger in his own house grew stronger than ever. There were more callers and more calls to return; there were more bridge parties and teas. His wife astonished him by announcing that she was going to take lessons in bridge and that Mr. Hungerford had found a teacher to perfect her in that branch of knowledge.