Mr. Pawket mildly waited for these asides to conclude before he resumed: "Howsomever, it seems that one dear to us"—he fixed his eyes on Willum, but in spite of him his gaze wandered off to Willum's lady—"one dear to us has got back from foreign lands and built a vanilla." The old farmer turned to Mrs. Folsom with a burst of eloquence. "Sence that has happened, by gum! our whole lives is changed and we know more about It'ly than I ever thought we should; and so with regards to this here new vanilla house and a few little presents and one thing and another, why, all I can say is, Mrs. Folsom, we've gone and did as we'd be done by."
There was something very like a cheer at the conclusion of these remarks. Meanwhile, at a sign from the architect, the great carved doors of the villa swung open and the little group pressed in.
They stepped into the cool, dim court with its paved floors and delicately woven stairways. Mrs. Folsom clasped her hands with pleasure over a wide window-seat which gave on a western slope where the gold sun was speared by the tall black trees. But Folsom, to whom the architect gave a nervous cue, hurried to the sala da mangiare, and thrust back its sumptuous Genoese curtains.
There under the iron candelabra of the Medicis stood a shining table of varnished splendor; on it, as if hoping to deaden its aggressive luster, was a marvelous strip of Paduan lace, while around its stodgy newness were six smug chairs of a very palpable "golden oak." Folsom threw up his hands in apparent joy and astonishment.
"Great Harry!" The young man's voice was extraordinarily exalted. He bent over and touched the varnished surfaces with a reverent hand. "A perfectly new dining-table—a present—a complete set of absolutely unused chairs! Oh, I say! This won't do—it's preposterous! Somebody has been getting gay." The young man first looked suspiciously at the architect, then turned and with severe eyes surveyed Farmer Pawket's shamefaced elation.
"So it's you, sir," he said. "Now look here!" Folsom strode up and put his firm hand on the old man's chest. "Brace up and tell what you know about this. Look me in the eye and tell me you didn't do it. No, you can't hide behind Mother Pawket." Folsom's grave glance reduced Mrs. Pawket to a helpless flutter. "She's probably put you up to it; she's a designing woman." Folsom went eagerly over to the dark-eyed Italian lady. "Jessica dearest, look at all this. Golden oak. Store furniture, by Jove! Mr. Pawket's gift to you and me."
The lady of the vanilla did not betray Mr. Badgely's hope of her. Widening her lovely eyes at the rich solidities before her, she slipped to the old man's side and seized his hands. A strange sense of fog enveloped Mr. Pawket; he stole a scared glance sidewise at the Rural. "It was all for me," the vibrant voice insisted. "This Weeliam he is favorito—he thinks the whole world is for his gift; but kind Signor Pawket thinks only of me; he knew"—with exquisite slow arrangement of accents—"how interested and happy I should be to at once understand the practical American ways—and he knew, with such understanding, how I must save and guard the poor destructed—what you call them?—foornitures, of my own people."
"Now, now, now!" protested Mr. Pawket, feebly.
Mr. Fripp, however, nodded to the Rural. "Well, it seems she knowed all the while that that there furniture warn't no good."
At last, at the architect's somewhat desperate solicitation, they all turned their steps to the salon. Mr. Badgely, making pathetic dumb-show, dragged William Folsom to the rear.