The telephone bell rang in the hall, and Miss Julia rose and left them. She was not in the telephone book. She looked coldly on telephones, as on a number of other and even more modern inventions, but she found hers useful in speaking to Washington tradesmen; and usually she answered and used it herself—Uncle Lysander was sickly afeared of the ’phone, and Dinah, her next most trusted servant, at the ’phone could do nothing but giggle into the receiver.
Her other guest turned to Sên with a pleasant smile that lit up her face, almost without moving it—chiefly a smile in her fine clear eyes.
“I have known Miss Townsend since we were very small girls, but I saw a new side of my old friend today. It was very charming to hear her telling stories to the mites who were here. She did it delightfully. I can’t tell you how they loved it. And how she loved doing it! It was touching.”
“Very,” said Sên gently.
Elenore Ray gave him a scanning look, and, at something she read there, he had made her his friend. But she only said quietly—for she, too, was a sash-wearer—“They were nice children—the tots that were here.”
“Very nice children,” Miss Julia emphasized, catching the last words as she came—it had been a wrong-number call—“they do their mother and their governess great credit. Well-behaved children are a true refreshment in these mad days.”
“I,” the physician laughed, “find naughty children a tonic.”
“I do not,” Miss Julia said sadly.
“I do!” her friend repeated. “And I make more money out of them. You see, I am an avaricious doctor, Mr. Sên.”
Sên laughed. “Was it a large party, Madame?” he asked.