“They’re in there—Edith and Alan.” He pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. “I thought they weren’t coming until after dinner.”
“Why, they weren’t.”
“Well, they’re in the parlor, just the same. Came out over an hour ago. Great Scott, I wished I’d gone with you. I’m worn out.”
“You don’t mean to say you’ve stayed with them all the time!” Mrs. Belmore looked scandalized.
“I should say I had; I couldn’t lose ’em. Whichever room I went to they followed; at least, she did, and he came after. I went from pillar to post, I give you my word, petty, but Edith had me by the neck; she never let go her grip for an instant. They won’t speak to each other, you see, only to me. I haven’t had a chance to even finish the paper. I’ve had the deuce of a time! I don’t know what you are going to do about it.”
“Never mind, it will be all right now,” said Mrs. Belmore reassuringly. She pushed past him into the parlor where sat a tall, straight girl with straight, light brows, a long straight nose, and a straight mouth with a droop at the corners. In the room beyond, a thick set, dark young man with glasses and a nervous expression was looking at pictures. It did not require a Solomon to discover at a glance how the land lay.
If Mrs. Belmore had counted easily on her powers of conciliation she was disappointed this time. After the dinner, whereat the conversation was dragged laboriously around four sides of a square, except when the two little girls made some slight diversion, and the several futile attempts when the meal was over to leave the lovers alone together, Mrs. Belmore resigned herself, perforce, to the loss of her cherished afternoon.
“It’s no use, we’ll have to give up the reading,” she said to her husband rapidly, in one of her comings and goings. “Perhaps later, dear. But it’s really dreadful, here we’ve been talking of religion and beet-root sugar and smallpox, when anyone can see that her heart is breaking.”
“I think he is getting the worst of it,” said Mr. Belmore impartially.
“Oh, it won’t hurt him.”