“I haven’t stumbled over him—that is, I mean not to any great extent. I wish I had, for he’s a most refreshing person,” answered Lucy, at first surprised into confused utterance and next growing defiant and continuing recklessly: “Didn’t you recognize him as the college friend of Charlie Ashton? Oh, I thought you did! Well, he is, anyway, though he wouldn’t go to Charlie’s red New Year’s tea, even when I begged him; and he doesn’t go to dances or play bridge, for he’s on the jump most of the time with his newspaper work. He’s been to the house a couple of times, with Charlie, of course, and father being at home and unshakable, we four have sat down to a solemn game of genuine whist; and you know yourself that to sit opposite to a youngish man for two whole evenings under such circumstances and not hate him is a proof of remarkable character, and as I can’t be accused of anything of that kind, it lies with him, you see.”
“Did he ask for the keys that night?” said Brooke, with overtransparent innocence, which, however, passed unnoticed.
“No, quite another time, when, having observed my intense interest in cards, he dropped in between assignments (while he was waiting for it to be time to take the speeches at an important corporation dinner, I think) and offered to teach me solitaire; but that was yet more melancholy than the whist, for as he had to look over my shoulder, I couldn’t even gaze at him, so we drifted to casino, which allowed both sight and speech!
“Really, Brooke, he is an awfully nice fellow; a gentleman and poor as a church mouse, for though Charlie says his father would overlook his distaste for the hereditary family business, a stepmother has recently occurred, whose policy it is to keep the feud boiling. But you see the fact that he can’t afford to marry, as Charlie says, and plainly stating it, puts everything on a nice friendly basis, with no possible misunderstanding on either side, which is quite delightful,” and Lucy bridled with an amusing air of disinterested and sisterly virtue.
So the time slipped away, as it has a way of doing under like circumstances, and the cross streak of sunlight that illuminated the title “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” on the lower shelf of the diamond-paned bookcase topping the desk, told Brooke, now becoming versed in the language of such things, that it was past four o’clock.
“Now we will have some tea before the Hendersons come for you,” she said, moving a quaint spindle-legged table from the corner to a convenient place by the lounge, and lifting one of the flaps.
“Yes, we have it as usual every day, mother and I, all by ourselves, except once in a while when Mr. Stead joins us; and though Adam scorns tea, I find that he happens in if fresh cakes are about, and Mrs. Peck has simply spoiled us with her seed cookies, though of course in another week that sort of thing will all be over.
“No, don’t come and help, sit quite still while I get the tray and kettle. Mother will make the tea; you know the girls always said, even in the rush of the season, that a cup of her tea was something to remember, and the making of it seems to pull her together.”
The three women had but just gathered about the little table, with Tatters sitting sedately beside, sniffing and coaxing for cookies, by waving one paw in the air, while Pam found herself being fed literally in the lap of luxury as personified by Lucy, when a clanging of heavy shaft-bells sounded, quite unlike the merry jingle of the usual sleigh, and then stopped suddenly, while at almost the same moment the ring in the brass lion’s mouth that was the door-knocker sounded a vigorous rat-tat-tat!