When President Phillips came in to dinner and asked for his daughters, their mother told him Helen was in her room and Elise had gone driving with Lola. "I did not like Elise's conduct at lunch. It was too pointed, entirely too pointed. I shall talk to the young lady very plainly."
"Now, Hayne, don't worry the child with this affair. It is bad enough as it is. I hope—"
"Bad enough as it is! Why, one would think you wished to resign also. Were you insulted, too?"
"Not insulted, Hayne; but ever since you sent me to the pinelands of North Carolina that winter for Elise's throat I have not been able to think of a negro as I did before—and Elise feels the same way, I know. It is so plain down there: the negroes are so many and so—different. I can't receive them with any sort of pleasure. Just think of what the Southern papers will have to say. The awful things they said about your negro quartette were almost unbearable, and I know that was mild to what this will be. I do wish you had not brought them in to lunch, Hayne."
"Why, May, you are surely not going over against me with those supercilious Southern fanatics?"
"Hayne! That is almost insulting. You know that I am for you against the world, whatever comes. No one, not even Elise or Helen, has ever heard me offer the least criticism of anything you have done—and no one ever will, my dearest"—she spoke simply and earnestly as she held her hands up toward him in a gesture eloquent of abiding love—"but I cannot have pleasure in receiving negroes. I have seen the negro as he really is, and I cannot feel that some soap and water and a silk hat make a—"
"Stop, May, right there"—Mr. Phillips' arms went about his wife in tenderness as he placed a hand upon her lips. "Listen to me. You dear women are creatures of impulse and sentiment—and thank Heaven for that, too: for when the time ever comes that you shall judge men from your heads instead of your hearts, woe to us!"—and he kissed her hair in reverent gentleness—-"but—"
"Well, this is an idyllic scene!" exclaimed Elise, coming into the room with Helen. "It is better than a play. Daddy dear, you do it beautifully. You should have gone on the stage."
Mr. Phillips' state of mind, his bottled-up vexation because of Elise's behaviour at luncheon, his impatience at the interruption of his conversation with his wife at the point where she seemed to have made out her case against him and before he had opportunity to demolish her sentiment with masculine logic, added to Elise's lightness of manner and speech, which nettled him in his serious concern over Baxter's resignation, were, all together, too much for moderation.
"Now look here, young lady," he growled out ungraciously, "you have presumed entirely too much upon your privileges to-day. When did you become too good to dine with people your mother and sister were entertaining?"