The family party lingered in the library while Wilbur finished his cigar. Mrs. Wilbur flung herself wearily against the wall on the long, red divan where she had been seated when Erard entered. If he had seen her now with her restless hands roaming over the large bunch of drooping roses, her eyes tired, not with physical exhaustion, but with the perpetual play of half-thoughts that sap vitality like dreams, the languor of the face at the time of triumph, he would not have said,—“Wait two years.”
“Well,” Wilbur broke the silence as his wife offered no remark, “I think our racket was an A 1 success. The house looked fine. The music was unusual, and the food was stunning.”
“Yes,” his wife assented. “They seemed to enjoy themselves.”
“Old Bailey and Fernald were here with their wives. I didn’t expect that,” he reflected complacently. “But the judge didn’t come. Mrs. Linton was here, and that married daughter of hers. The judge didn’t come, though!”
“Judge Linton’s rheumatism confines him to the house,” Mrs. Wilbur replied comfortingly.
“Did you notice Mrs. Stevans’s diamonds? She is a fine-looking, well-set-up woman. I had a long talk with her. She may be a little gay, but she has a first-rate head. She was asking about the Bad Lands Company.”
Sebastian Anthon sat near the fire smoking a long cigarette, a habit he had maintained in spite of the brick interests, and eyeing Wilbur keenly.
“I suppose,” he spoke languidly, “this is the top of the hill. You are pretty young to have got there already. You’ll have to spend the rest of your life trying not to roll off.”
“It’s a big success, Ady. I am proud of you.” Mrs. Anthon crossed the room and kissed her daughter effusively. “You have done everything just as I would have had you do,—married well, and had a family”—here she prophesied, except for little Sebastian, unless he could be called a “family,”—“and have this elegant house, and—”
“Let me show you your room, uncle!” Mrs. Wilbur followed the old man, who seemed to be fleeing from the volubility of his sister-in-law.