“Oh, yes, certainly! It’s well that you reminded me.” Mrs. Callender beamed anew upon her help. “I’m going out to-day to luncheon, so you and Nelly will have all the time there is. I’ll go and see about the ordering at once as soon as I have given her directions about the table. I want everything to look as pretty as possible. Mr. Callender is going to bring me some lovely flowers for the center of it,” she concluded with a little flourish.
In the little rounds of a suburban town any incident is an event. Mrs. Callender felt that the day had become one of real importance. She let her fancy play around the two Englishmen and her good dinner and her own toilet until she was in a very pleasurable state of excitement. And to be going out to luncheon besides! The latter, however, was not a real function, but only the usual concomitant of a French reading which she held every week with a friend—still, it was quite like having two invitations in one day.
It happened that another friend stopped in casually that morning to see Mrs. Callender, on her way home from marketing, and from her she gained the pleasing knowledge that all the viands on which she had set her reckless fancy were really to be had that day—even to the fresh peas, whose pods might almost have contained small balls of gold, so stupendous was the price asked for them. But when she finally went upstairs to dress she found, to her consternation, that it was already half-past eleven, and not a thing ordered yet!
Every moment now was precious. She concentrated all her attention, and sitting down by her desk took up a sheet of blue paper and wrote down rapidly on it a list of all her wants—one for the grocer, and one for the butcher. Then Fortune favoring her with the sight of little Jack Rand across the street, on his bicycle, she called him over and confided the list to his care.
“And be sure that they both read the order carefully,” she said. “Take it on to Cadmus when O’Reilly is through with it. You will not need to tell them anything except that they are to send the things at once.”
“Yes,” said Jacky, departing with swift-revolving red legs. As she saw the blue paper in his hands a strange reluctance seemed to hover over her, she couldn’t tell why, as if it were somehow wrong to write lists on blue paper. Perhaps it was extravagant. There was a load off her mind when Jack returned to affirm the faithful performance of his errand, before she started out for the luncheon. “‘They had all the things and they’ll send them right up, they promised.’” She repeated his words with a glow of satisfaction.
There was no French after luncheon that day. Her friend had tickets for the private view of some pictures in town and persuaded Mrs. Callender to accompany her, under the pledge of taking an early train back. As a matter of fact, the six o’clock bells were ringing before Mrs. Callender had started to walk home from the station, feeling thoroughly guilty as she thought of her long defection from the affairs of the household on such a day, though it was quite likely that Chauncey’s friends would not come. The blue paper returned to her mind, unpleasantly, mysteriously.
She hastened into the kitchen, to be confronted by a scene of spotless order, a brilliant fire in the range shedding a red glow over the hearth, and the white-aproned cook sitting in front of it with her hands folded and a stony glare in her eyes.
“How is the dinner getting on?” asked Mrs. Callender nervously.