CHAPTER XXVII
arl wished that Adelaide Benner had never come from Joralemon to study domestic science. He felt that he was a sullen brute, but he could not master his helpless irritation as he walked with Adelaide and Gertie Cowles through Central Park, on a snowy Sunday afternoon of December. Adelaide assumed that one remained in the state of mind called Joralemon all one's life; that, however famous he might be, the son of Oscar Ericson was not sufficiently refined for Miss Cowles of the Big House on the Hill, though he might improve under Cowles influences. He was still a person who had run away from Plato! But that assumption was far less irritating than one into which Adelaide threw all of her faded yearning—that Gertie and he were in love.
Adelaide kept repeating, with coy slyness: "Isn't it too bad you two have me in the way!" and: "Don't mind poor me. Auntie will turn her back any time you want her to."
And Gertie merely blushed, murmuring, "Don't be a silly."
At Eightieth Street Adelaide announced: "Now I must leave you children. I'm going over to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I do love to see art pictures. I've always wanted to. Now be as good as you can, you two."
Gertie was mechanical about replying. "Oh, don't run away, Addy dear."
"Oh yes, you two will miss an old maid like me terribly!" And Adelaide was off, a small, sturdy, undistinguished figure, with an unyielding loyalty to Gertie and to the idea of marriage.