"Oh, well! If you don t see!"
"Well, I DON'T see. But I don't want to ask them to the house. I suppose, if I want to, I can invite him down to a fish dinner at Taft's."
Mrs. Lapham fell back in her chair, and let her work drop in her lap with that "Tckk!" in which her sex knows how to express utter contempt and despair.
"What's the matter?"
"Well, if you DO such a thing, Silas, I'll never speak to you again! It's no USE! It's NO use! I did think, after you'd behaved so well about Rogers, I might trust you a little. But I see I can't. I presume as long as you live you'll have to be nosed about like a perfect--I don't know what!"
"What are you making such a fuss about?" demanded Lapham, terribly crestfallen, but trying to pluck up a spirit. "I haven't done anything yet. I can't ask your advice about anything any more without having you fly out. Confound it! I shall do as I please after this."
But as if he could not endure that contemptuous atmosphere, he got up, and his wife heard him in the dining-room pouring himself out a glass of ice-water, and then heard him mount the stairs to their room, and slam its door after him.
"Do you know what your father's wanting to do now?" Mrs. Lapham asked her eldest daughter, who lounged into the parlour a moment with her wrap stringing from her arm, while the younger went straight to bed. "He wants to invite Mr. Corey's father to a fish dinner at Taft's!"
Penelope was yawning with her hand on her mouth; she stopped, and, with a laugh of amused expectance, sank into a chair, her shoulders shrugged forward.
"Why! what in the world has put the Colonel up to that?"