"You act as if you were twenty, instead of well—let me guess your age," looking at him with keen scrutiny. "About thirty‑five," said Marcia cruelly.
He stopped short to gaze at her with pained reproach. "I am Youth! Incarnate Youth, just eighteen. No doubt to your dulled materialistic vision I appear to wear a coat and hat. Is that true?" with polite, tolerant patience.
"It certainly appears that way to me," she replied. "What do you imagine yourself to be wearing?"
"And I dare say," he continued still patiently, "that you also fancy you and I are strolling about in one of the shopping districts of New York?"
"Yes," nodding affirmatively. "Where else?"
"Wretched, purblind girl! Thirty‑five indeed! Why, I am eighteen, and clad in the hide of a leopard with a wreath of roses on my brow, and you, sweet Œnone, are wandering with me on the slopes of Ida—and we are taking your mother, not one, but a peck of golden apples."
"All things considered," said Marcia significantly, "I am glad we have reached our own door."
They found Mrs. Oldham in good spirits in consequence of having seen a number of people who had sufficient tact duly to admire her new costume worn for the first time that afternoon. She had given much consideration to all the effects of the picture she wished to create, and now sat in an especial chair in an especial part of the room, a vision in pale gray and orchid tints most skilfully mingled. Her feet, in orchid silk stockings, and slippers adorned with great choux of gray chiffon, looked on their footstool as if they were a part of the decorations of the room and had never served the utilitarian purpose of conveyance.
"Oh, I am glad to see you!" she cried, peering past Marcia to Hayden who followed, almost obscured by his great package. She stretched out a hand for him to take, not disarranging her pose by rising and thus spoiling the composition. "Marcia, you're dreadfully late, as usual," a touch of fretfulness in her voice.
"I know," replied her daughter; "and now, I'm going to leave Mr. Hayden to you. Give him some tea, won't you? I'm dining at the Habershams, you know, and he will drive down with me after a while."