“How do you do? This is very good of you; won’t you sit here? We feel very much like strangers, coming back to Slocum after so many years. Fanny, darling, take your spools and wool and go to nurse. There—first say: ‘How do you do?’ to Mrs. Warrener.”
Gertrude had a vision of a small creature with a head like a chrysanthemum flower and the wide, round eyes of a child. The little hand that met her glove with frank politeness gave her a pretty greeting. Mrs. Warrener was obliged to break the hard tension of nervous fright that clutched her throat, and to speak to her hostess, who, in a chair near her, represented a world of civilization and education so unlike her own that a bird of paradise and a barnyard hen might have had more points in common.
She breathed out: “I used to know Mrs. McAllister; she used to go to my husband’s uncle’s church.” There was no elder lady present, and Mrs. Warrener looked for one.
“Oh, yes,” her hostess answered. “I am very sorry my mother is not here. She is at Cannes; she never comes north before spring. It is nearly twelve years since she’s been in America.”
“Yes,” Mrs. Warrener was forced to speak. “I guess it was just at the time of my wedding. That was eight years ago. I remember they said she was going to Europe then. She came to my wedding; she was at the church.”
Mrs. Bellamy, who keenly, although with perfect politeness, was studying the village lady before her, wondered very much for what reason her mother had attended the Warrener wedding.
“Slocum must seem small after Rome,” Mrs. Warrener ventured into the conversation with more ease.
Her hostess laughed. “Slocum! Why, I haven’t seen it yet, do you know! I came at night—we drove up from the train in a storm. But”—she raised her eyes to the other part of the room—“my brother can tell you how it seems; he has lots of ideas about it! My brother, Mr. McAllister—Mrs. Warrener.”
Paul McAllister had returned, to his sister’s great surprise.
“Mrs. Warrener thinks Slocum must seem ‘small’ after Rome.” She did not italicize the repetition which she carefully made, sure that it would appeal to her brother’s humor as it was.