It was this very attitude which inspired an acrimonious half hour in the somewhat pretentious parlor on Maple Avenue just before Jeff was to pay his farewell call at the close of the Cattle Week.
Elvine was occupied with a small note-book on the| pages of which there were many figures. With a small gold pencil she was working out sums, which, apparently, were solely for her own edification. She communicated nothing to her mother, who covertly glanced over at her from the fancy work she was engaged upon at the far side of the room.
The room was such as might be found in any of the better middle-class houses in a western city. Its furnishing was a trifle ornate. Comfortable chairs predominated, and their woodwork shone with an extreme lustre, or were equally aggressive in their modern fictitious Mission House style. The carpet and rugs were broadly floral and bright. There was altogether a modernity about the character of it which decidedly belonged to the gray-haired showiness of the wife of John Carruthers. For all that, there was nothing absolutely untasteful about Elvine's surroundings. The daughter would never have permitted such a thing. It was only modern, extremely modern. That type of modern which belongs to those homes where money is a careful consideration.
At last Elvine closed her note-book and returned it to the rather large pocketbook which was lying in her lap. Her fine eyes were half smiling, and a faint tinge of color deepened her perfect cheeks. She sighed.
"We didn't do so badly at the races, Momma," she said, more for her own satisfaction than her mother's information. "Guess I've got most all of it in and—I'm satisfied."
"Maybe you are, my dear," came the ungracious response.
Her mother was bending over her work, nor did she trouble to raise her eyes in her daughter's direction.
"That sounds as if somebody else wasn't."
Elvine raised a pair of beautifully rounded arms above her head and rested the back of her neck upon her clasped hands.
The gray head was lifted sharply. A pair of brilliant black eyes shot a disapproving glance across the room. Then the mother continued her work, shaking her head emphatically.