“All the same, it would be a good thing for you if you had some clever people—or some society people—coming here often. It would advertise the place as nothing else would.”
“Well, we’ll see about that,” said Father—which meant, of course, that he wouldn’t see about it.
Lulu Hartwig was a source of agitation for two weeks. After Father’s outbreak she stopped commenting, but every day when business was light they could feel her accusingly counting the number of customers. But she did not become active again till the Sunday before her going.
The Applebys were sitting up-stairs, that day, holding hands and avoiding Lulu. Below them they heard a motor-car stop, and Mother prepared to go down and serve the tourists. The brazen, beloved voice of Uncle Joe Tubbs of West Skipsit blared out: “Where’s the folks, heh? Tell ’em the Tubbses are here.”
And Lulu’s congealed voice, in answer: “I don’t know whether they are at home. If they are, who shall I tell them is calling, please?”
“Huh? Oh, well, just say the Tubbses.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Tubbs?”
By this time Father and Mother were galloping down-stairs. They welcomed the Tubbses with yelps of pleasure; the four of them sat in rockers on the grass and talked about the Tubbses’ boarders, and the Applebys admired to hear that Uncle Joe now ran the car himself. But all of them were conscious that Lulu, in a chiffon scarf and eye-glasses, was watching them amusedly, and the Tubbses uneasily took leave in an hour, pleading the distance back to West Skipsit.
Not till evening, when he got the chance to walk by himself on the beach below the gravel cliffs, did Father quite realize what his daughter had done—that, with her superior manner, she had frightened the Tubbses away. Yet there was nothing to do about it.