“I do not think,” she began, in a tone so constrained that the very sound of it frightened her step-mother. “I do not think that my father would like to have you refer to your past life, among his friends.”
“My patience!” said Mrs. Judge Erskine. “Why not? I never done anything to be ashamed of—never in my life. I was an honest, respectable girl. There ain’t one who knew me but could tell you that; and, as to being poor, why, I couldn’t help that, you know; and I ain’t been rich such a dreadful long time that I’ve forgot how it felt, neither. Not that your pa kept me close; he never did that. But I kept myself close, you see, because I had no kind of a notion that he was so rich.”
This was worse than the former strain. Ruth was almost desperate:
“It makes no difference to me how poor you were, Madam, but it is not the custom in society to tell all about one’s private affairs.”
And then, in the next breath, she wondered what Judge Erskine would have said, could he have heard her address his wife in that tone, and with those words. At least she had frightened her into silence. And they rang at Mrs. Huntington’s and were admitted—an angry woman, with flashing eyes, and a cowed woman, who wished she was at home, and didn’t know what to say. Poor Ruth was sorry that she had interfered. Perhaps any sort of talk would have been less observable than this awkward, half frightened silence; also, Judge Burnham was in the room, at the other end of the parlor, among the books, as one familiar there. Mrs. Huntington belonged to the profession. Was it more or less embarrassing because of his presence? Ruth could not bring herself to being sure which it was. Mrs. Huntington was a genial woman, though an exceedingly stylish one; but she knew as little how to put a frightened, constrained person at ease, as it was possible to know about anything; and yet her heart was good enough.
“I suppose you attended the concert, last evening, Mrs. Erskine?” she said, addressing that lady with a smile, and in a winning tone of voice. But Mrs. Erskine looked over at Ruth, in the absurd fashion of a naughty child, who, having been punished for some misdemeanor, glances at you, to be sure that he is not offending in the same way again. Ruth was selecting a card from her case to leave for Miss Almina Huntington, and apparently gave no notice to her mother. Left thus to her own resources, what could she do but answer, as best she knew how?
“Well, no, I didn’t. Judge Erskine got tickets, and said he would take me if I wanted to go; but I didn’t want to go. The fact is, I suppose, it is want of education, or something; but I ain’t a might of taste for those concerts. I like singing, too. I used to go to singing-school, when I was a girl, and I was reckoned to have a good voice, and I used to like it first-rate—sang in the choir, you know, and all that; but these fiddle-dee-dee, screech-owl performances that they get off nowadays, and call music, I can’t stand, nohow. I went to one of ’em. I thought I’d like to please Judge Erskine, you know, and I went; and they said it was fine, and perfectly glorious, and all that; but I didn’t think so, and that’s the whole of it. I gaped and gaped the whole blessed evening. I was ashamed of myself, but I couldn’t help it. I tried to listen, too, and get the best of it, but it was just yelp and howl, and I couldn’t make out a word, no more than if it had been in Dutch; and I dunno but it was. I don’t like ’em, and I can’t help it.”
Mrs. Erskine was growing independent and indignant. Silence was not her forte, and, in the few minutes which she had spent thus, she had resolved not to pretend to be what she wasn’t.
“I don’t like them yelping, half-dressed women, nor them roaring men,” she said, swiftly, to herself, “and I mean to say so. Why shouldn’t I?”
Poor Ruth! It was not that she enjoyed or admired operatic singing, or the usual style of modern concert singing. In a calm, dignified, haughty way, she had been heard to say that she thought music had degenerated, and was being put to very unintellectual uses in these days, in comparison with what had been its place. But that was such a very different thing from talking about “fiddle-dee-dee,” and “screeching,” and “howling,” and, above all, “gaping!” What could be said? Mrs. Huntington was not equal to the occasion. She was no more capable of appreciating what there was of beauty in the singing than her caller was, but she was aware that society expected her to appreciate it; so she did it! Judge Burnham came to the rescue: