“Tea’s Victorian, of course, and I daresay coal fires and lamps and comfort are Victorian, too, and I like them both too much to find any fault with terminology, Gay!” Sylvia said, cheerfully.
“We live in just such a country house outside of Quebec; we’re quite accustomed to country winters,” murmured the charming voice of the older Miss Montallen. The travellers drank their tea standing, exclaimed over the delicious home-made bread. The young men were rather silent, exchanging little friendly murmurs and grins, except that the one named Frank du Spain attached himself instantly to Gabrielle; Flora chatted, Sylvia made the right comments, David stood by the mantel, tall, pleased, smiling at them all. Gay hardly identified the other men until dinner-time, so entirely monopolized was her attention by the one.
Meanwhile, Sylvia was delighted again, upstairs. Nothing could make Wastewater anything but old-fashioned, clumsy, draughty. But the old rooms did look hospitable and comfortable, the beds were heaped with covers, and there were two more airtight stoves roaring here. Daisy and Sarah were rushing about with great pitchers of hot water; the girls scattered their effects from room to room, and went to and fro in wrappers, laughing and running.
Sylvia’s usual room was on the second floor, next her mother’s. But for this occasion Flora had grouped all the young persons on the third floor, where the rooms were smaller, better lighted in winter, and connecting.
Outside the snow fell—fell. The world was wrapped in winding sheets, muffled and disguised, and the snow fell softly on the surface of the running, white-capped waves, and was devoured by them. Whenever a window was opened, a rush of pure cold snowy air rushed in and the bare-armed girls who had wanted a breath of it had to shut it out, laughing and gasping, once more.
But inside Wastewater’s old walls there were noise and merriment, songs about the old piano, laughing groups about the fires, and the delicious odours, the clatter and tinkle of china and silver around the solemnly wavering candles on the dining-room table.
Gabrielle could not talk much, for Sylvia and these particular friends had shared several holidays, and their chatter was of other times and places. But her cheeks glowed with excitement, and she moved her star-sapphire eyes from one face to another eagerly, as if unwilling to lose a word of their talk. And again, Sylvia was always “superior.”
She was evidently a girl who took her college life seriously; studied and excelled, and enjoyed studying and excelling. She was prominent in various undergraduate organizations; interested in the “best” developments of this and that element in school life, the “best” way to handle problems of all sorts. Laura and Gwen Montallen immensely admired her, Gabrielle could see, and were continually referring to her in little affectionate phrases: “Ah, yes, but you see you can do that sort of thing, Sylvia, for they’ll all listen to you!” or “Sylvia here, with her famous diplomacy, went straight to the Dean——”
The men, Gabrielle thought, were unusually nice types, too. They were all in the early twenties, none was rich, and all seemed serious and ambitious. Bart Montallen was to have a small diplomatic berth when he graduated in June; Arthur Tipping was already well started toward a junior membership in his uncle’s law firm and spoke concernedly of “making a home” for his mother and little sisters as soon as he could; and Frank du Spain was a joyous, talkative youth, who confessed, when he sat next to Gay at dinner, that his people were not especially pleased with his college record, and that, unless he wanted trouble with his parents, he had to “make good, by gum.” He told Gay that his father had a ranch near Pasadena, and Gay widened her eyes and said wistfully, “It sounds delicious!” David, looking approvingly at her from the head of the table, thought the velvet gown with the embroidery collar and cuffs a great success.
Altogether the young guests were simple, unspoiled, enthusiastic about the delicious triumph of a meal, and over the pleasantness of being free from studies and together. Gay, impressed by this and anxious to establish cousinlike relations with Sylvia, said something of it rather shyly when Sylvia came in for a few friendly moments of chat alone, late that night.