“Dinner is ready,” she said, standing in the doorway. There was a flush on her cheeks and an odd smile on her lips.
Baron took Bonnie May by the hand—he could not quite understand the impulse which prompted him to do so—and led her into the dining-room.
He saw that she bore her face aloft, with a painful effort at unconcern. He was glad that she was given a place next to him, with the elder Baron on her right, and Flora across the table from her.
He was dismayed to note that his mother was quite beside herself. He had expected a certain amount of irritation, of chagrin, but not this ominous, pallid silence. She avoided her son’s eyes, and this meant, of course, that her wrath would sooner or later be visited upon his head.
He sighed with discouragement. He realized sadly that his mother’s heaviest crosses had always come to her from such trivial causes! She was oddly childish—just as Bonnie May was strangely unchildlike. Still, she had all the traditions of propriety, of a rule-made demeanor, behind her. Strange that she could not have risen to the difficulty that had confronted her, and emerged from a petty predicament without so much of loss!
The meal progressed in a constrained silence. Bonnie May concerned herself with her napkin; she admired the design on the china; she appeared to appraise the dishes with the care of an epicure. And at last, unfortunately, she spoke.
“Don’t you think, Mr. Baron”—to the master of the house—“that it is a pretty custom to converse while at table?”
Mr. Baron coughed. He was keenly aware that something had gone wrong; he was shrewd enough to surmise that Bonnie May had offended. But he was in the position of the passenger below decks who senses an abnormal atmosphere but who is unadvised as to the nature of the storm.
“I’m afraid I’m not a very reliable hand at small talk,” he said guardedly. “I think my idea is that you ought to talk when you have something to say.”
“Very good!” agreed Bonnie May, nodding brightly. She patted her lips daintily with the corner of her napkin. “Only it seems like chickens eating when you don’t talk. The noises make you nervous. I should think anything would get by, even if you talked about the weather. Otherwise it seems just like machinery at work. Rather messy machinery, too.”