Sydney merely stared. Max’s “thank you” was spoken as a most loving son might greet his mother; but he wore an apron and carried a napkin on his arm; and his “dinner is served,” was in the tone of the most obsequious servant.
They went out in great state, Sydney giving his arm, and Max throwing open the door, drawing the chair for Madame and, when he had seated her, standing stiffly behind her.
Before she could touch her soup Sydney brought a jar of marmalade, insisting that she should try it at once.
“No, no! Not before soup!” Max objected, forgetting his “place” as waiter. “Take your sweets away till dessert.”
“They’re his sweets too. It’s really a three-partner job,” Sydney explained.
Mrs. Schmitz pronounced it excellent with such fervor that both boys were convinced. She never told them that it was “clear as mud.” How could it be otherwise when Max had “stirred it to death”?
With great merriment, and in several courses, the dinner passed. Max insisted on serving in great style because he knew how it should be done; but she blighted his vanity by commanding him to his own seat while they ate. It was really a success. She praised everything, entering into their fun; and the boys, taught by her absence, felt a deeper joy in all she did, realizing gratefully how much a part of her home life she considered them.
A few days after this came a telephone summons from Bess Carter for Max to bring his violin and music. There was an invitation for Sydney also, but he refused—so curtly that Max, who, though leaving the room, could not help hearing it, was out of patience with him. And when he came home after an evening of music and joy he painted it in extravagant fashion, intending to punish Sydney for slighting Miss Carter. He never dreamed he was stirring an already hot-burning fire in Sydney’s heart.
It was by no means love for Bess that seethed in his veins. Neither was it any passion that Sydney could recognize and analyze. It was a savage sort of resentment that another should be able to please, not only Bess, but all, girls and boys; that Max should be able to say with ease the most appropriate and interesting things, while he, Sydney, the tongue-tied, could merely mumble. That Max could make exquisite music, do the gallant thing at the right moment, and wear his clothes as if they were king’s ermine—it was all this that made the less gifted, untaught waif of a boy—boy yet though a man in size—rage at himself and hate everyone, Max in particular.