Cis talked little during these pleasant evenings, yet she never felt, nor was excluded. Miss Braithwaite’s smile was always ready for her; Mr. Lancaster included her with small services rendered her as she worked, and his eyes rested upon her as he talked, leaving her free to reply or not as she chose, and thus she, though silently for the most part, made a third in the conversation.
On the eve of Christmas Eve Mr. Lancaster came rather later than usual; Cis had decided that he was not coming and was a little disappointed. She was restless; it was hard to keep her fingers steadily employed, her mind off the thought that the morrow would have been her wedding day. Somewhere Rod was remembering this. She sent a prayer out toward him wherever he might be, that he might be blessed.
When Mr. Lancaster came in Miss Braithwaite was more than usually glad to see him.
“Welcome indeed, Anselm!” she cried. “I am glad to see you, I heartily detest telephoning, but I must arrange the details of our Christmas with you. You know that the Jesuits have High Mass at midnight? Father Morley needed persuading to it, but he yielded to our clamor for it. My ragamuffins have their tree to-morrow, at five in the afternoon—though I don’t suppose you’d have suspected me of the morning five o’clock! As you’re to be my Santa Claus, you’ll meet me at the hall, I suppose? The tree should be all over by seven. Then you’ll come home with us; we’ll have a cozy dinner—maigre, for the vigil!—and quietly wait for the time to start for Mass. I’ll drive you and Cis; the maids are to be sent in another car. Then, after Mass, we’ll wish one another a blessed Noël, and Cicely a birthday of the best gifts, and go our ways to our well-merited slumber. Do you like my programme?”
“Only an ingrate could say no, Miss Miriam,” cried Anselm Lancaster. “I’ll do my best to fulfil my part of it. I’ve an idea! Do you mind if I costume as St. Nicholas, instead of Santa Claus, and tell the boys in a few simple words who I am, what I’ve always done for children, and, in a word, what a fine thing it is to have a saint for their friend, instead of a fake? I think I can get it over to them, and it’s rather a chance to steer them toward realities. What says the great little lady? And her lieutenant?”
“The great little lady highly approves, Anselm; it takes you to see chances to bolster up faith and morals incidentally to a frolic!” cried Miss Braithwaite.
“And—?” hinted Mr. Lancaster, waiting for Cis. “The lieutenant?”
“If I’m the great little lady’s lieutenant, she thinks it’s fine,” Cis said. “It will be good for me, too, because I don’t know much about St. Nicholas, except that somehow he stood for Santa Claus’ portrait, and it didn’t come near the original. Queer, but I never liked Santa Claus as well as other children did; he’s too fa-stout! I hated that line that told about his shaking when he trotted around! Maybe I’d have liked him better if I’d been one of a family, and a lot of us had got acquainted with him together, waiting for him to come down the chimney.”
Anselm Lancaster looked pleased at this unusually long speech from Cis. Sometimes Cis wondered if he knew her story and were sorry for her. She did not mind if he knew, nor resent his possible pity. He was so simply and truly a fine gentleman that no knowledge that he possessed of another could ever seem like an intrusion.
“Good! Then St. Nicholas appears, permissu superiorum!” he cried. “Miss Braithwaite tells me that you are to sing, Miss Adair; out of sight, impersonating an angel, probably. I didn’t know you sang.”