“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” said Irene decisively. “I’ve been through this before and his heart kicking up this way doesn’t mean anything. Alcohol hits him quick but it doesn’t last long. He really didn’t have enough to make a baby tipsy. But he never learns that he can’t stand it. You two just forget all about him.”
Craig, the chauffeur, came in with Kemp’s coat and they got him into it; but Kemp played for delay. His dinner engagement was of no consequence; he insisted that Irene could go alone if she pleased; she was a quitter and above all things he hated a quitter. His engagement to dine was at the Isaac Cummings’s, and the fact that he was asked there called for an elaborate explanation which he insisted on delivering from the door. People were always boring him by asking him to do things when his wife was away, from a mistaken idea that a man alone in town is a forlorn and pitiable being, subject to the wiles of people he cares nothing for and in normal circumstances avoids. He warmed to the work of abusing Cummings; it was an impertinence on the part of his business competitor to invite him to his house. The Cummingses were climbers; his wife detested Mrs. Cummings, and if she had been home he wouldn’t have been trapped into an engagement of which he now profoundly repented; and besides the dinner would be dry; he would never be able to sit through it. The insistence of the others that it was a formal function and that it was too late to withdraw his acceptance aroused him to an elaborate elucidation of the Cummings’s offer of hospitality. Cummings was hard up; he had sunk a lot of money in oil ventures. Kemp recited a list of Cummings’s liabilities, tracing imaginary tables of figures on the wall with an unsteady finger and turning to his auditors for their concurrence in his opinion that Cummings was on the verge of bankruptcy.
“Playin’ up to me; thinks Tom Kemp’s goin’ help him out! Poor boob’d like to merge—merge his business with me—me! No y’ don’t, Mr. Cummings!” he bowed mockingly to an imaginary Cummings. The bow would have landed him on the floor if Trenton hadn’t caught him.
“Jes’ foolin’; don’ need to hol’ me, Ward,” he said, straightening himself. “Goin’ home ri’ now. Miss Kirby take my arm! Guess I know my manners; or’nary courtesy due lady ’nevery part th’ worl’.”
Irene steadied him to the car, and after Craig had lifted him in he waved his hand to Trenton and Grace with an effort at gaiety.
“House all yours, Ward; make y’ present ole Shack. Burn it down; do’s y’ please. Jerry’ll give y’ anythin’ y’ want—wine ’neverythin’.”
II
Grace and Trenton watched the car turn the long bend toward the highway and hurried back to the fire of hickory logs that crackled merrily in the living-room fireplace.
“Now for tea!” said Grace. “I ate a huge dinner but our tramp’s given me a new appetite.”
She sat down before the tray while he stood by the hearth, resting his elbow on the mantel-shelf, watching her. Jerry asked if he should turn on the lights.