She was dressed with all the exquisite, subtle attention to detail which never failed to make Baron proud of her. He took in the quiet, old-fashioned jewelry, sparingly displayed; the softened dignity of costume; the fine severity of her beautiful hair. Surely she was every inch a gentlewoman of whom any son might be proud.
She held Bonnie May, smiling serenely, by the hand.
“I just wanted you to know,” she said, standing impressively erect and speaking with quiet resolution, “that we are ready to go to the play.”
CHAPTER XIX
BONNIE MAY LOOKS BACK
Baggot’s play, it seemed, was really a charming thing—a modernized fairy-story.
To the monotonous rumble of revolving car-wheels the plot was outlined, the characters sketched. Baron felt the dramatic force of it, the surprises. But as the enthusiastic playwright proceeded with his self-appointed task, Baron began to realize, also, that he and his companions and their affairs constituted a very queer sort of drama.
By his side sat Baggot, and in front of them were his mother and Bonnie May. Mrs. Baron, for special reasons of her own, was making a studied and persistent effort to be entertaining. She talked to the child almost continuously. But Baron could not help seeing that Bonnie May was determinedly playing a double rôle. She was politely pretending to listen to every word Mrs. Baron said, but she was also keeping one ear eagerly turned toward Baggot.
Baggot, for his part, saw only that Baron seemed to be giving a good deal of his attention to the little girl in the seat ahead. He couldn’t make any excuse for such division of interest. He began leaning forward at frequent intervals to catch Baron’s eye—to see if the points he was making were going home.
Only Mrs. Baron remained in a single-minded mood. She continued to talk amiably, and no doubt a bit wearyingly. She was determined that Bonnie May should have no ground for complaint that she was not being properly entertained.
“You see,” Baggot was saying, “the central figure is an elf, or a sprite, who is supposed to be an embodiment of the good traits in human nature. And then there are witches, and gnomes, and dwarfs, and some big fellows—vikings and Titans and giants—and some figures put in for the sake of—well, variety: druids, and people like that. And Psyche—to make a swell picture. Looking at her reflection, you know. All but the central figure, the sprite, are supposed to embody faulty traits, like cruelty, or vanity, or superstition, or jealousy, or envy, or fear. And then certain other qualities—for comedy effects, like laziness, or stubbornness, or stupidity. See? And the sprite governs them all, little by little, until in the end they turn into fairies, or nice human beings. A great transformation scene....”