Miss Haviland winced and shifted her maroon parasol to the shoulder on his side, and smiled attentively at me to sweeten the interval, and continued:
“Now I, if you’re interested to hear—”
I was very interested, and told her so. It always piqued my curiosity, moreover, to think why Miss Haviland picked me out—young as I was—for such confidences. I believe it was mostly because I always stared at her so; which she mistook, characteristically, for sheer flattery.
Even as she spoke, I was remarking to myself the frilled languor of her dress, and her firm rather large-boned throat, and the moisture—for it was hot—under the imitation pearls, and the competent grip of her hand on the long onyx handle of her parasol.
She stopped short of a sudden. George took a few steps ahead. She lifted her parasol over to the other shoulder and looked at him, and he fell into line again, a sensitive, pleased, proud smile showing above his little round beard.
“Now I think it would be better—simpler, more dignified, and less ghastly for him—if he came, say, to luncheon, and if we arranged for a small, a very small, group of the people he’d care most to see—he doesn’t, poor fellow, want to see many of us!—a small group, I say, to come—George! Please! It makes me nervous, it interrupts me, and it is very bad for the path.... Cover it up now with your foot. No—here—let me do it.”
“Pardon,” said George, cheerfully.
Miss Haviland winced again. “I don’t know about trains,” she went on, “but we can look one out for him” (she facilely avoided the American idiom) “and then motor him to town in—in Mrs. Edgerton’s car. Don’t you think that will be more comme il faut?”
“He’ll be so pleased, he’ll enjoy so much meeting her!” exclaimed George to me, rising on his toes repeatedly and rubbing his small dry hands together. “Won’t he?”
Miss Haviland turned to him severely, and at a signal he drew his arm up and she slipped hers through it.