“I didn’t hear. I don’t know’s I’d blame her much if she did. He’s worth lookin’ at. Handsome a young feller as I’ve ever set eyes on. I don’t know’s I shan’t be fallin’ in love with him myself,” Nabby added, with a surprising affectation of kittenishness.
Varunas seemed to find it surprising enough. He looked at her for a moment and then turned on his heel.
“Where you goin’ now?” his wife demanded.
“Down street—to buy you a lookin’ glass,” he retorted and slammed the door.
This new change in Esther affected her relations with the visitor. She avoided him no longer. They were together a great deal, although, to be entirely honest, he was still the pursuer. Foster Townsend was not wholly satisfied with this condition of affairs. He liked young Covell well enough; for the matter of that it would have been hard not to like him. As Covell, Senior, wrote in his first letter, he possessed the knack of making people like him at first sight. Varunas, crotchety as he very often was, liked him immensely, although he refused to admit it to his wife, who was continually chanting praises.
Townsend was a good judge of men and prided himself upon that faculty, so, although he found his friend’s son agreeable, witty, a fascinating talker and the best of company, he reserved his decision concerning what might lie beneath all these taking qualities until he should come to know him better. As he would have expressed it, he wanted time to find out how he “wore.” There were some objections already in his mind. He expressed one of them to Varunas, with whom he was likely to be as confidential as with any one except his niece—or, of course and at times, with Reliance Clark.
“He’s almost too good looking,” he said. “I never saw one of those fellows yet—one so pretty that he looked as if he belonged in a picture book—who wasn’t spoiled by fool women. There are enough of that kind in Harniss who would like nothing better than the chance to spoil this one; that is plain enough already. And he doesn’t mind their trying—that is just as plain.”
Varunas nodded. He had half a mind to repeat a few stories he had heard. There was Margery Wheeler, people were saying that she was making a fool of herself over young Covell, although they did say that he paid little attention to her. And there was a girl named Campton, whose family lived on the lower road, not far from Tobias Eldridge’s home, who was pretty and vivacious and who bore the local reputation of being a “great hand for the fellows.” She had a passable voice and was one of Sir Joseph Porter’s “sisters or cousins or aunts” in the “Pinafore” chorus. She and Seymour Covell were friendly, it was said. Mrs. Tobias Eldridge was responsible for the report that he had been seen leaving the Campton cottage at a late hour. Mrs. Eldridge confided to a bosom friend that, from what she could make out, he didn’t come to that cottage very early either. “Saw Esther home from rehearsal first and then went down to Carrie Campton’s without tellin’ anybody; that’s my guess, if you want to know,” she whispered. “But for heaven’s sake don’t say I ever said such a thing. Course it may not be true, but Tobias himself saw somebody he was sure was him comin’ out of their front door at twelve o’clock last time he went to lodge meetin’. Last time Tobias went, I mean.”
The bosom friend had imparted this confidence, as a secret not to be divulged, to another bosom friend, and, at last, some one had whispered it to Varunas Gifford. Varunas was tempted to tell the story to his employer, but decided not to do so. It might stir up trouble; you never could tell how Cap’n Foster would take a yarn of that kind. He would be just as likely as not to declare it was all a lie, and no one’s business anyhow, and give him—Varunas—fits for repeating it. And, after all, it was no one’s business—except Seymour’s. Young fellows were only young once and Carrie Campton was “cute” and attractive. Varunas cherished the illusion that when he, himself, was young he had been a heartbreaker. And he liked Covell. So he said nothing about the rumored philandering.
The advance sale of seats for the “Pinafore” production had exceeded all expectations. And the evening of the performance brought to the town hall the largest audience it had ever held, even larger than that attending the Old Folks’ Concert. Miss Abbie Makepeace, who contributed the Harniss “locals” to the Item, sat up until three o’clock the following morning writing rhapsodies concerning the affair. She used up the very last half inch of space allotted to her and interesting jottings like “Our well known boniface Mrs. Sarepta Ginn will close her select boarding house and hostelry on the fifteenth of the month for the season as usual” were obliged to be put over for another week. Abbie’s whole column was filled with naught but “Pinafore.” “I never supposed there could be anything else as important as that happen in this town in one week,” she explained to Reliance Clark the next day. “If I’d ever expected—but, my soul, who could expect such a thing!”