"I remember this house very well," he remarked, carefully spearing another piece of lemon for his tea. "It was a tavern in the stage-coach days, before you were born, my dear. Old Will Jasmine used to keep it; he was enormously stout and very bald, which was a comfort, considering that he did all the fine cooking himself. He could dress green turtle as well as a chef. He used to keep a keg of beer on tap in that corner where you've got your bookcase, a dry kind of a substitute, too! That high window, with the Colonial fan over the top, was over the counter. I wonder how much Paul Van Citters cut out of his aunt's income for all those improvements? I heard that the old lady had to wear the same bonnet for three years, on account of those Corinthian capitals out on the front portico, and they ought to have been Doric!"
Rachel laughed. "Paul had been reading Ruskin, and he was mad about the subtle influences of architecture; I'm afraid he forgot the architecture of his aunt's bonnets."
"He couldn't; I've seen 'em."
"I wish he'd put in a few closets—not in his aunt's bonnets but in this house; it's as barren of closets as Paul's brain. I always feel that there are no little intricate places there, no little cells of poetic fancy. Paul is just stodgy and commonplace but Pamela loves him."
Dr. Macclesfield stirred his tea industriously. "Rachel," he said, "why did you let Eva's maid go to Addie Billop?"
Rachel drew a quick breath. "That's Mrs. Billop's affair; she knew that Zélie had been dismissed."
"Humph! I didn't, until yesterday. I was in New York for the day and met Sidney, wandering down Fifth Avenue with his mouth open, catching flies as usual. He mentioned the fact that Zélie was a treasure. I wonder if he's forgotten the pantry," the doctor added, chuckling softly.
"Only the wicked remember. Doctor, let me give you another cup of tea."
"No, my child," he waved her away. "Tea makes me gossip; two cups mean the undoing of my neighbors; a third would make me tell you about my grandmother and my first trousers. By the way, Rachel, John Charter landed in San Francisco yesterday, Pamela Van Citters told me; he'll have to report to the War Department here at once, so we'll see him."
Rachel busied herself with her tea-caddy, and as she deftly measured out another spoonful of tea, her hand was quite steady and slenderly graceful. The doctor watched her.