She stood near Mrs. Jones-Dexter as the amazing conviction rushed over her that Robert Gaston did not resemble her mental portrait of him in any particular, and that he was actually there and had been helping her serve tea for an hour. Mrs. Jones-Dexter looked up disapprovingly. "Do you mean to say that you have been allowing a young man whom you did not know to help you, Miss Secunda?" she demanded sternly. She had fallen into the habit of calling Margery and Happie and Laura "Prima, Secunda and Tertia."
Happie gazed at her blankly. "That isn't the worst of it," she said. "The worst of it is that Margery does know him, and that he is really very, very nice. I thought he'd be perfectly unbearable, but anybody could bear him easily. Oh, dear, oh, dear! Margery will like him—I do myself!"
Mrs. Jones-Dexter stared at Happie for an instant, then she laughed. "I think I see!" she observed. "My dear, be consoled. There might be a degree of badness beyond this. Prima might see his charm and you not see it. That would be far worse. And take an old woman's advice; don't grudge your sisters happiness of their own selection. It's better to float with currents than to beat yourself to tatters trying to stem them. If Prima is drifting away, drift after her, don't hold back."
Happie did not heed this excellent advice, based on Mrs. Jones-Dexter's personal experiences. She was watching Margery as she replied to Robert's questions, and understood his laughing glances towards herself, surmising that he was relating to Margery the story of his latest hour of usefulness.
Herr Lieder stopped playing, disturbed, perhaps, with the quick telepathic instinct of a musician, by Laura's perturbation, which was nearly as great as Happie's, when she saw Margery greet the stranger and guessed his identity.
Herr Lieder went away quickly without a word, as he had preferred doing at the end of his first playing. After he had gone the people who had been lingering in the tea room stirred sighingly, and there was a rustle of general departure, leaving space and opportunity for Margery to come down the room with Robert Gaston to where Happie and Gretta exchanged rapid whispers till the approaching pair were at hand, when Gretta hastily slipped away to safety in the rear.
"Happie, dear," Margery began, "I must introduce to you my friend, Mr. Gaston, but he already knows you. This is my Happiness-sister, Mr. Gaston, of whom I used to speak so often—who let me go away to be idle and happy all summer, while she stayed in the Ark, and bore the brunt of a great deal that was hard."
"And who did such great kindness thereby to a young man from Baltimore and his sister Mary, of whom she had never heard," added Robert Gaston, taking Happie's hand with that mixture of old-fashioned formality and boyish simplicity which was his charm. "I hope Miss Happie is going to give me her friendship, quite independent of Miss Margery,—the way it was begun!" he added with a twinkle.
Happie looked painfully embarrassed. "It won't matter about my friendship, I am three years younger than Margery," she said awkwardly and not too relevantly.
"Do you regard the affections of your family through the wrong end of a telescope, Miss Happie? I want the friendship of all the Scollards, down to the dancing-school pupils there, who are devoutly wishing I'd take myself off and let their sisters lead them to class," said Robert Gaston, passing over Happie's awkwardness so lightly that she was grateful. "I must carry out their desires."