“May has told me so much about you ... I’m delighted to know you.”
“Sit down until we finish,” said May. “We’re just eating the last of our dessert.”
Now May’s introduction of Mr. Clarence Murdock was not altogether straightforward. From the phrases she chose, it could be gathered that it was the first time she had ever seen Mr. Murdock and that Ellen had never heard of him before. In this there was no truth for he had seen May many times. They even called each other by their Christian names. And May had given Ellen elaborately detailed descriptions of the young man, having gone even so far as to hint that there was more between them than mere friendship. But May could not resist doing things of this sort where a man was concerned. It was impossible for her to be honest. The mere shadow of a man upon the horizon goaded her into a display of dimples and coquetry. She bridled, grew arch and mysterious. She was taught by an aspiring mother that these things were a part of a game. Ellen might have replied, “Yes. I’ve heard a great deal concerning you, Mr. Murdock,” but she did not. She said, “I’m so glad to know you,” gave him a faint smile and a look which seemed not so much concerned with Mr. Murdock as with the dead fish and boiled lobsters in the ornamental print on the wall behind him. All the same she began quietly examining the points of the stranger.
He was not bad looking and he had nice manners. To be sure he might have been taller. He was not quite so tall as Ellen. He had nice brown hair sleekly brushed back from a high forehead, and he wore a starched collar of the high, ungainly sort which was the fashion in those days. His eyes were brown and gentle and near-sighted, his face well-shaped and his nose straight, though a trifle thin so that it gave his countenance a look of insignificance which one might expect in a perpetual clerk. He was not, Ellen decided, the sort of romantic figure which could sweep her off her feet. Still, he came from New York. That was something. He had lived in the world.
“My, what a rain we’ve been having,” observed Mrs. Seton. “I suppose it’s what you’d call the equinoctial storms.”
Yes, her spouse replied, it was just that. And he launched into a dissertation upon equinoctial storms, their origin, their effect, their endurance, their manifestations in various quarters of the globe,—in short all about them. Fifteen precious minutes passed beyond recall into eternity while Harvey Seton discussed equinoctial storms. No one else spoke, for it was the edict of this father that no one should interrupt him until he had exhausted his subject. He was indeed a King among Bores. And when he had finished, his wife, instead of going further with this topic or one of similar profundity, struck out in the exasperating fashion of women upon some new and trivial tangent.
“Herman Biggs is coming in, Ellen,” she observed brightly. “Right after supper.” And she beamed on Ellen with the air of a great benefactress. Her thoughts were not uttered, yet to one of Ellen’s shrewdness they were clear. The smile said, “Of course a poor girl like you could not aspire to a New Yorker like Mr. Murdock, but I am doing my best to see that you get a good husband. Herman Biggs is respectable and honest. He’ll make a good husband. We must look higher for May. She must have something like Mr. Murdock.”
And even as she spoke the doorbell rang and the anemic Jimmy sped away to open it as if on the doorstep outside stood not the freckled Herman Biggs but some wild adventure in the form of a romantic stranger.
It was Herman Biggs. He came in as he had come in a thousand times before, and stood with his dripping hat in his hand, awkwardly, while he was introduced to Mr. Clarence Murdock. But he did not sit down. The lecture upon equinoctial storms had claimed the remainder of the time allotted to dessert. The little group rose and distributed itself through the house. Mr. Seton went into a room known as his den. Mrs. Seton went into the kitchen and the young people disappeared into the cavernous parlor, followed by Jimmy, still filled with the same expectancy of stupendous adventure, intent upon harassing the little party for the rest of the evening by the sort of guerilla warfare in which he excelled.
It was a gaunt house constructed in a bad period when houses broke out into cupolas, unusual bay windows and variations of the mansard roof. Outside it was painted a liverish brown; inside the effect was the same. In the parlor there was an enormous bronze chandelier with burners constructed in imitation of the lamps found during the excavation of Pompeii, an event which considerably agitated the world of the eighties. The walls were covered with deep red paper of a very complicated design of arabesques upon which was superimposed a second design in very elegant gold, even more complicated. Against this hung engravings of Dignity and Impudence, The Monarch of the Forest, and The Trial of Effie Deans. Pampas grass in vases ornamented with realistic pink porcelain roses, waved its dusty plumes above a bronze clock surmounted by a bronze chariot driver and horses which rushed headlong toward a collision with a porcelain rosebud. By the side of the clock stood a large conch shell bearing in gilt lettering the legend, “Souvenir of Los Angeles, Cal.”