“Of course,” she said, “it will cost quite a little, but Cousin Percy says there's no use having a teacher at all unless you have a good one, and three dollars a lesson isn't too much, because you learn so quickly from an expert. I was sure you would be willing for me to take the lessons, Daniel.”
Daniel shook his head. “I'm willin' for you to do most anything that pleases you, Serena,” he said, “but three dollars a lesson for learnin' how to play cards seems to me a pretty good price. If it was me I should feel as if 'twas doubtful whether I'd get as much out of it as I put in. That's what Ezra Small, back home, said when he put his sprained foot in a plaster cast. Ezra said he never expected to get more than half his foot back, because the way that plaster stuck he cal'lated it would hang on to the rest. I should feel the same way about the three dollars for a bridge lesson.”
“Oh, no, you wouldn't after you had taken a few. You'll like it then.”
“I, like it! Good Heavens, you don't mean—”
“I meant that you're going to take lessons, too, of course. You must learn to play bridge—everybody plays it. And you used to like cards.”
“I used to like high-low-jack, and I could manage to take a hand at euchre without raisin' too big a disturbance; but I never could learn that bridge and play it with those women friends of yours—never in this world. More'n that, I don't intend to try.”
And he positively refused to try in spite of his wife's pleading. However, he consented to the employment of the bridge teacher for her and, thereafter, two hours of each alternate afternoon, Sundays excepted, were spent by Mrs. Dott and two other female students in company with a thin and didactic spinster who quoted Elwell and Foster and discoursed learnedly concerning the values of no-trump hands. The lessons were given at the Dott home and Mr. Hungerford was an interested spectator. Daniel, who was not interested, and felt himself in the way, moped in his own room or went upon more of the lonely walks about town.
Chapter meetings and Chapter activities occupied more of Serena's time. There were “open” meetings occasionally and these Captain Dan seldom attended. Mr. Hungerford acted as his wife's escort and seemed to enjoy it, in his languid fashion. Chapter politics began now to have their innings. There was to be a national convention of the Ladies of Honor, a convention to be held in the neighboring city of Atterbury, and Scarford Chapter was to send delegates. Mrs. B. Phelps Black, who aspired to national honors, was desirous of being one of these delegates, but so were many others, and Mrs. Black's candidacy was by no means unopposed. She called upon Serena for help, and into the fight in aid of her friend Serena flung herself, heart and soul.
There were meetings, and more meetings, and letter writing, and canvassing of voters. Here again, Daniel was of no use. Cousin Percy's experience—he seemed to have had all sorts of experience—helped amazingly. Mr. Hungerford's willingness to help in all things where no particular labor was concerned was most astonishing. By this time he was as much a member of the Dott household as Serena herself—more than the captain, who began to feel that he was not a member at all. Even bridge was side-tracked for the more absorbing political game, and evening after evening Captain Dan spent alone. Occasionally Mr. Hungerford kept him company, but his was company not too congenial. It is true that the young man was agreeable enough, but he and the captain found nothing in common to talk about, and Cousin Percy usually gave up the attempt at conversation rather early and fell asleep upon the sofa or went out on little excursions of his own to which Daniel was not invited.
Mr. Hungerford smoked a good deal, and it was Daniel's cigars that he smoked. His vacation seemed no nearer the end than it had when he first came. The shrewd Azuba informed the captain that she guessed it was “one of them vacations that didn't have any end, but was all beginnin'.” Her employer reproved her for speaking in this way of a friend of the family—he felt it was his duty to do that—but the rebuke was a mild one.