"There was not a vacant place yesterday at this hour," Maida answered, a little hurt. "That I can tell you. Can you tell, Mrs Denwiddie, what has become of them all?"
"Did you not hear the fuss an hour ago or more? It woke me out of my morning sleep. Such gabble and uproar I never did hear--slamming doors and scuttling feet, everybody speaking at once, enough to wake the dead. And when I got up and looked out, there they were, just starting away in buggies and 'buses and rockaways, the whole lot of boarders it seemed to me, and it just astonishes me to see so many left behind. Jest those that couldn't go, I guess, or didn't care to go, because there was nobody to mind them."
"Where have they gone, then?" asked Maida. "As I went away, so to speak, yesterday, I was taking no interest in the plans; but I am real sorry for Gil----for Mr Roe's sake, that I did not know; and I wonder you did not go with the rest, Mrs Denwiddie."
"So I would, perhaps, if it had not been for promising to breakfast along with you, under the circumstances;" and she looked most knowingly into the other's eyes with her head on one side. But seeing the humour was not appreciated, she went on--"though I don't know either. I don't much hold with boat-rides, and there'll be sech a crush! Jest think of a boat on the water in Lippenstock Bay a day like this! for it's there they're gone to, and Fessenden's Island, for a picnic. And won't they find they've had enough of their steamboat-ride afore they're done with it! I went last summer, and I know."
"We must resign ourselves to a quiet day on the sands, then," said Maida, with a little sigh which expressed nothing but satisfaction. "Let's go at once, Gilbert, before the heat comes on. There's a nice grove down near the shore, about three miles along, and it'll be just splendid to rest there about noon."
"Three miles, Maidy--and three back! And how am I to go that far in the heat?" exclaimed the widow.
Maida opened her eyes, just a little. It was convenient to have her aged friend--for so she was now for the first time disposed to consider her--sit by her at table, and fend off curious remark; but to have her make a third in her intercourse with Gilbert was more than flesh and blood could be expected to bear. Her lips tightened, and there was a quiver of the nostril suggestive of a sniff; but she took care to make no emendation of her first proposal.
"I think, now," said Mrs Denwiddie, "the best thing Mr Roe can do would be to give us a ride along the sands in one of the landlord's rockaways. He'd find it real smooth and pleasant for conversation." She was indeed loath to part from "these two interestin' young things," as she would have called them now, though twenty-four hours earlier she would certainly have spoken of Maida as a forlorn old maid; so completely will circumstances alter cases. The young man made the difference--the old, old story which is always new. She was too old herself for these sweet passages; but if she could no longer hope to woo or be wooed, it was pleasant to assist at the wooing of some one else. People do not cease to be hungry when they lose their teeth, and a Barmecide banquet is better than no feast at all. Is not this "the long-felt want," to quote the prospectus-writers, which finds readers for the shoal of love-tales published every week?
"I'm going for a smoke," Gilbert observed, after an interval in which the play of knife and fork had absorbed their undivided attention; and marshalling his companions out of the dining-room, he withdrew to the male lounging-ground of the establishment. There he found the "proprietor" and his clerk, each with a newspaper and a toothpick, arranging themselves on three chairs apiece to ruminate on the breakfast they had eaten, and to anticipate the meal which was to come next. The day was dies non with them, their customers being away at the picnic, and they were promising themselves a morning of complete repose. Gilbert's appearance was not particularly welcome; however, they both favoured him with an inclination of the head, the proprietor combining his with a flourish of his toothpick towards the regiment of empty chairs, by way of inviting him to take a few and make himself at home.
He condescended to accept one of Gilbert's cigars; and finding it good, he relaxed so far as to vouchsafe a reference from the paper he was still reading, with regard to the state of politics in "Bhoston,"--to which Gilbert replied, alluding in passing to affairs in the West. Thereupon the proprietor woke up sufficiently to put one of his feet to the ground, and proceeded to interrogate him as to where was his home, what was his occupation, why was he travelling in the East, &c. Having received all the particulars which his guest seemed disposed to communicate, his interest subsided again, his leg resumed the horizontal position, his eyes returned to his paper, and his answers to Gilbert's efforts to converse became so brief and indifferent that the latter gave it up, and pored over his own newspaper in silence. The captain of a ship may be an important person on his own deck, but his grandeur is nothing to that of a hotel proprietor when his house is full. He is so accustomed to be spoken fair by guests desiring improved accommodation and eccentric et-ceteras, that he stiffens into an autocrat of the severest type.