Martha calmly interrupted. “It isn't kind at all,” she said. “And it isn't dinner, it is supper. If you don't stay I shall think it is because you don't like baked beans. I may as well tell you,” she added, “that you will get beans and nothin' else over at Elmer Roger's. They won't be as good as these, that's all. That isn't pride,” she continued, with a twinkle in her eye. “Anybody's beans are better than Elmer's, they couldn't help bein'.”
The visitor still hesitated. “Well, really, Miss Phipps,” he said, “I—Well, I should like to stay. I should, indeed. But, you see, my chauffeur is outside waiting to take me over to the Roger's House.”
Martha smiled. “Oh, no, he isn't,” she said. “He is havin' his supper in the kitchen now. Run along, Mr. Bangs, and you and your cousin hurry down as soon as you can.”
On the way upstairs Cabot asked a question.
“She is a 'reg'lar' woman, as the boys say,” he observed. “I like her. Does she always, so to speak, boss people like that?”
Galusha nodded, cheerfully. “When she thinks they need it,” he replied.
“Humph! I understand now what you meant by saying she had taken charge of you. Does she boss you?”
Another cheerful nod. “I ALWAYS need it,” answered Galusha.
Martha, of course, presided at the supper table. Primmie did not sit down with the rest. She ate in the kitchen with the Cabot chauffeur. But she entered the dining room from time to time to bring in hot brown bread or beans or cookies, or to change the plates, and each time she did so she stared at Cousin Gussie with awe in her gaze. Evidently the knowledge that the head of Cabot, Bancroft and Cabot was sitting there before her had impressed her hugely. It was from Cabot, Bancroft and Cabot, so Primmie remembered, that Mr. Bangs had procured the mammoth pile of bank notes which she had seen upon her mistress's center table. She had never actually been told where those notes came from, but she had guessed. And now the proprietor of the “money factory”—for that is very nearly what it was in her imagination—was there, sitting at the Phipps' 'dining table, eating the baked beans that she herself had helped prepare. No wonder that Primmie was awe-stricken, no wonder that she tripped over the mat corner and just escaped showering the distinguished guest with a platterful of those very beans.
Mr. Cabot seemed to enjoy his supper hugely. He was jolly, talkative, and very entertaining. He described his camp sojourn in Nevada and, according to him, life in a mountain sanitarium, under the care of a doctor and two husky male nurses, was a gorgeous joke. Martha, who, to tell the truth, had at first secretly shown a little of Primmie's awe, was soon completely at ease. Even Galusha laughed, though not as often. It was hard for him to forget the powder barrel sensation. Each time his cousin opened his mouth to speak, he dreaded to hear reference to a dangerous subject or to be asked a question which would set fire to the fuse.