Cis was ready when he came for her; he helped her into his car, and she cried out, almost reproachfully:
“A new car! Why are men always changing cars? What did you do with that nice one, the roadster?”
“Turned it in; I don’t need two. I thought when Paul and Jeanette were married, and you were here, we’d need the five passenger; we can take Miss Braithwaite, too. But please don’t speak of that nice one; as if it weren’t this nice one! Let me tell you I’m proud of this car!” Anselm said as he shoved out the brake and started.
“Of course you are! They always are! Boys of new knives; men of new cars! They are much alike, aren’t they?” said Cis.
“Knives and cars? Oh, I don’t know; I could always distinguish the differences,” Anselm remarked.
“Boys and men! I never thought you would be stupid!” Cis said severely.
“I’ll prove to you I’m not, if you’ll wait a bit!” Anselm’s remark sounded like a continuation of the nonsense they were happily talking, but his look silenced Cis, and set her nervously wondering why it made her nervous.
The Lancaster house was far finer than Cis had expected to find it. She had known all along that Anselm Lancaster had wealth; he used it generously, and it must have been considerable for him to accomplish with it all that he did. But ocular proof is another thing from hearsay. Here was a house of great dignity, standing in the midst of considerable land, approached by an avenue of old trees. Its solid doors, opening, revealed a stately hall; in the rooms opening from the hall Cis found old furniture, beautiful and stately. Pictures which even her untrained eye instantly knew for good ones, hung on the walls; bronzes, a tall clock, all sorts of beauty which was evidently the slow accumulation by many people with taste and means to gratify it, filled the house.
“How beautiful!” cried Cis. “Why, Mr. Lancaster, it’s what the novels call a mansion! It’s as fine as Miss Braithwaite’s house!”
“They are contemporaries. Her great-grandfather and mine, and each generation since, have been friends. This house was built when hers was. My people were not Catholics, till my grandmother married a Lancaster and brought this house to him; she became a Catholic after she had married him. My father married a saintly woman; it is two generations—I the third—since the Lancaster house became a Catholic home. Now I try to make it a home for converts who are put to too hard a test at first; a temporary home, of course. I’m more than glad that you like my house, Cicely!”