“Glad you liked it.” She continued to smile. Marjorie regarded her eccentric benefactor with utter devotion. Miss Susanna was flowering forth into graciousness as a peach tree breaks forth into rosy bloom in early spring. The others were watching the devoted pair and smiling their approval.
“You had better come to tea tomorrow afternoon, Robin and Marjorie,” Miss Hamilton now invited. “I’ll send for Peter Graham to come, too. Then you can talk matters over with him. There’ll be no papers to sign. Our word is as good as Peter’s and Peter’s is as good as ours. Don’t cry because you’re not invited to tea,” she humorously consoled the uninvited trio. “I’ll invite you to tea one of these fine days and leave out Page and Dean.”
“You wouldn’t be so mean,” protested Robin.
“Wait a while and see,” teased Leila, nodding with lifted brows at Page and Dean.
Having confessed her part and Jonas’ in starting the building of the dormitory ahead of time, Miss Susanna had a great deal more to say on the subject. When Jonas came to remove the tea things she sent him to the house for a bundle of plans and specifications. These she spread out on the rustic table and began an explanation of them to her young friends.
“There’ll be some water color drawings for you to see before long,” she made lively promise. “Peter will do them himself. He is very clever in that line.”
In spite of the fact that the supposedly crabbed mistress of Hamilton Arms mingled little with the business world she had a shrewd practical idea of values. She had listened carefully to her old friend, Peter Graham, when he had gone over the plans and specifications with her. Now she was ready to pass the information she had gained on to the five Travelers. So absorbed were they in listening as she unfolded the cherished enterprise to them they lost all idea of time. Jonas’ deep gentle announcement: “Dinner time, Miss Susanna,” reminded them that afternoon had slipped into evening.
It seemed to them that the end of a perfect day had indeed arrived when Miss Hamilton led the dinner procession of three couples into the tea room instead of the dining room. More, she explained that Jonas was proficient in Chinese cookery. Under his direction the cook would serve them with a real Chinese dinner.
It began with shark-fin soup and celery hearts, went triumphantly on through chicken mushroom chop suey, chow mein, rice, cooked as few other than the Chinese can cook rice, and costly Chinese tea. It ended with a very sweet dessert of preserved kumquats, crystalized ginger, almond cakes and barley candy. Jonas had spent the greater part of the day preparing the feast from recipes which he, Brooke Hamilton and the young Chinese lord, Prince Tuan Chi, had tried out with laughter and good cheer in the immense old-fashioned kitchen of the Arms.
After dinner Miss Susanna martialed the girls into the music room to sing for her. Robin was immediately besieged by all to sing.