CHAPTER XXIII
HE was making himself entirely at home. He had crossed his feet and had placed them square in the middle of the mahogany seat of my nice little Windsor chair, which he had drawn up in front of him. His toes pointed to the ceiling; his cigarette pointed there too; for he had comfortably pillowed his greasy old head (Breck's hair is jet black and always looks as if it was wet) on the top of the low back of the sofa. The smoke that he blew at times from his nose went straight up like smoke from a chimney on a windless day. I didn't think it was a very pretty attitude for a man to assume in the presence of a young lady. His hands were stuffed in his trousers pockets, and when he spoke the only trouble he went to was to roll his head in Ruth's direction. He's anything but good-looking. He has half-closed eyes like a Chinaman's, and a yellow, unpleasant complexion.
"Come on over here," I heard him say in that kind of guttural voice a man uses when he tries to talk with a cigarette in his mouth, and I saw him shift up one shoulder to motion Ruth to sit down beside him.
I couldn't see my sister but I heard her reply. "I don't feel like it to-night, Breck," she said.
Breck smoked in silence for half a minute, then he asked, removing his cigarette, "Say, what's the matter with you to-night? Are you back again on that old subject which your precious saint of a professor here raised up out of the past? Haven't I explained that to you a dozen times?"
"I wish you wouldn't refer to members of my family in such a way," replied Ruth. "It isn't respectful to me. You're not marrying beneath you, as your manner sometimes seems to imply. My brother-in-law whom you choose to call a saint is a noted man, if you only read enough to know it, Breck. Oh, no, I'm not thinking about that college affair of yours. I'm not a jealous kind of girl. You know that."
"Well, what is it then? It gets me what I've done to deserve such treatment. Weren't they the right kind of flowers?"
"Don't be absurd, Breck. As if ornaments or flowers were what I required! I'll tell you what's the matter, if you want to know," said Ruth. "It's simply this: I don't think you're treating your engagement with proper respect. It seems out-of-order to me that I should have told my family about our intentions before you have told yours. It isn't a bit as it should be. I hate even to speak about so delicate a thing—but, Breck, why hasn't your mother written to me? Why hasn't she set a day for me to come and see her? Here my family are all recognising you as a future member of their group, while your family haven't even as much as made a sign."
"Oh, now, now," replied Breck soothingly. "That's it, is it? Don't you worry, little one. The mater will come around, all right. Give her time. For my part, though, I'd rather step into the Little Church Around the Corner and get it over with in a swoop."