She trailed noiselessly upstairs, carrying her heavy suit case, and Harlan, not altogether happy at the prospect, went in search of Dorothy. At the kitchen door he paused, hearing voices within.
“They’ve usually et by themselves,” Mrs. Smithers was saying. “Is this a new one, or a friend of yours?”
The sentence was utterly without meaning, either to Harlan or Dorothy, but the answer was given, as quick as a flash. “A friend, Mrs. Smithers—a very dear old friend of Mr. Carr’s.”
“‘Mr. Carr’s,’” repeated Harlan, miserably, tiptoeing away to the library, where he sat down and wiped his forehead. “‘A very dear old friend.’” Disconnectedly, and with pronounced emphasis, Harlan mentioned the place which is said to be paved with good intentions.
The clock struck twelve, and it was just eleven when he had begun on The Quest of the Lady Elaine. “‘One crowded hour of glorious life is worth’—what idiot said it was worth anything?” groaned Harlan, inwardly. “Anyway, I’ve had the crowded hour. ‘Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay’”—the line sang itself into his consciousness. “Europe be everlastingly condemned,” he muttered. “Oh, how my head aches!”
He leaned back in his chair, wondering where “Cathay” might be. It sounded like a nice, quiet place, with no “dear old friends” in it—a peaceful spot where people could write books if they wanted to. “Just why,” he asked himself more than once, “was I inspired to grab the shaky paw of that human sponge? ‘Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean’—oh, the devil! She must have a volume of Tennyson in her grip, and it’s soaking through!”
Mrs. Smithers came out into the hall, more sepulchral and grim-visaged than ever, and rang the bell for luncheon. To Harlan’s fevered fancy, it sounded like a sexton tolling a bell for a funeral. Miss St. Clair, with the traces of tears practically removed, floated gracefully downstairs, and Harlan, coming out of the library with the furtive step of a wild beast from its lair, met her inopportunely at the foot of the stairs.
She smiled at him in a timid, but friendly fashion, and at the precise moment, Dorothy appeared in the dining-room door.
“Harlan, dear,” she said, in her sweetest tones, “will you give our guest your arm and escort her out to luncheon? I have it all ready!”
Miss St. Clair clutched timidly at Harlan’s rigid coat sleeve, wondering what strange custom of the house would be evident next, and the fog was thick before Mr. Carr’s eyes, when he took his accustomed seat at the head of the table. As a sign of devotion, he tried to step on Dorothy’s foot under the table, after a pleasing habit of their courtship in the New York boarding-house, but he succeeded only in drawing an unconscious “ouch” and a vivid blush from Miss St. Clair, by which he impressed Dorothy more deeply than he could have hoped to do otherwise.