“I certainly hope I shan’t be a disappointment to you, Mrs. Blair. I can never thank you enough for what you are doing for me.”
As the outer door closed, Mrs. Blair appeared before Wayne.
“Well, what are they saying? Is the male population taking it calmly? Is there rebellion anywhere?”
Wayne tossed his magazine aside as his sister bent over and kissed him. She curled up in a big chair, while he brought his mind to bear upon her question.
“My dear Fanny, why do you ask anything so preposterous? Do you suppose anybody is going to tell our father that he ought to consider well the seriousness of a second marriage, his duty to his children, his duty to their mother and all that kind of rot? Not on your life, my dearest sister! Nor is our father’s pastor going to ask him for the credentials of the lady he proposes to honour. Everybody downtown is delighted. He got a jolly from every man he saw at the Club to-day where, by the way, I was taken to show our delight in the prospect of seeing a new face at the ancestral dinner table. So much for us males; how about the women? Are there any signs of revolt? I met Dick’s mother a while ago, and she had her knife sharpened.”
“Many people are still away, but my telephone has rung all day and the town’s buzzing.”
“It’s a good thing for the town to have something that it can concentrate on for a few days. Dick Wingfield says the trouble with us here is our lack of social unification. Our approaching stepmother’s advent may have the effect of concentrating social influences.”
“The older women resent it; they declare they will have nothing to do with her.”
“Those estimable ladies whose husbands have paper in banks where father is a director will sing a different tune this evening.”
“Men don’t know how we women feel about such matters; if mama had not been the woman she was it wouldn’t be so hard.”