XXXIV
When John returned on Sunday he again found Lucy seated in the dining room by an open window, a book in her lap.
“Hello!” he greeted, pausing in the doorway and setting down his suit case.
Lucy looked up.
Going over to her chair, he bent and kissed her forehead lightly. He seemed to have regained some of his former cheerful spirits. His color was nearer normal and his eyes were brighter.
“I think we ought to get rid of Katy, John,” advised Lucy that evening after dinner. “There are not so many in the family now and it will save money. I don’t really need her. I can do the work without any difficulty.”
“I don’t want you tied up here at home all the time,” he replied. “You need a girl.”
“But, John, a servant costs so much and I don’t mind the work a bit.”
“No. We can’t stay shut in the house night and day. We’ll go dotty.”
“All right, John. Just as you say.” Lucy sighed as she spoke.
“I’m sleepy,” said Dimmie yawning.
“All right, Sonny,” she said. “Kiss Papa good night.” And Lucy led the child away.
John entered the living room, and, seating himself at the piano, attempted to play the accompaniment to “Ouvrez tes yeux.”
When Lucy came downstairs again after putting Dimmie to bed, John rose.
“Let’s walk over to the Hamiltons’ for a few minutes,” he suggested.
“Why—” she began, and hesitated, adding hastily. “All right, John. Let me get a scarf from my room and speak to Katy.”
In her room she scrutinized her face in the mirror. Tears rolled down her pale cheeks. She wiped the tears viciously away, and, seizing a coarse wash cloth, rubbed her cheeks fiercely until a little color appeared in them.
When they arrived at the Hamiltons’ home the doctor met them at the door.
“Come in,” he invited cordially. “Mrs. Hamilton is putting Stella to bed. She’ll be down in a minute. How are you feeling by this time, Mrs. Winter? You’re looking better.”
“I’m feeling all right, thank you, Doctor.”
Doctor Hamilton pushed forward chairs for his visitors and they seated themselves.
“Your mother went away yesterday, didn’t she?” he continued. “Is she coming back soon?”
“Oh, probably not till next summer, anyway,” put in John.
“She’s been gone several days. She’s going to be married soon,” supplemented Lucy.
John gave her a quick accusing glance.
“Indeed,” commented Doctor Hamilton.
Mrs. Hamilton appeared in the doorway.
“Come on into the study, Mr. Winter, and smoke a cigar. We’ll leave the ladies to talk gossip,” urged the Doctor, rising.
“You mean leave the ladies in order to talk gossip.” Mrs. Hamilton laughed as she straightened her husband’s cravat.
It was after ten o’clock when John and Lucy reached home.
“Let’s go to a show tomorrow night,” he proposed as he unlocked the front door. “I’ll get the tickets when I go down town.”
“All right, John,” Lucy acquiesced without demur.
“We ought to get out more than we’ve been in the habit of doing,” he went on. “It’s a good thing to know more people. We have practically no friends at all.”
“I don’t—” Lucy ventured. Then, checking herself, “We have a few good friends, John.”
“I don’t know who they are. I don’t count Jim Sprague as a friend any more, and Miss Storms, that you used to be so crazy about, has shown herself to be a two-faced cat. The Hamiltons are all right in their way, but—”
“I don’t think you are just to Miss Storms, John. She—”
“Now, see here, Lucy,” John’s face began to grow red, “if you are going to stick up for that woman after all she’s done, we might as well understand each other right now. I simply won’t have you—”
“Don’t be angry, John,” pleaded Lucy humbly. “I won’t say any more about her.”
“I don’t want you to have any more to do with her, either,” he dictated with suppressed vehemence.
“All right, John,” Lucy submitted again.
The following Sunday Mrs. Hamilton invited John and Lucy to tea.
“I suppose we might as well accept,” John had remarked when Lucy told him of the invitation. “We’ve no place else to go.”
They arrived early. The summer was established and a crimson sunset ended a brilliant day. Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton were seated on the porch and both rose as their visitors came up the walk.
“We were enjoying the view over our park,” Mrs. Hamilton observed facetiously, nodding toward the vacant ground which permitted an unobstructed view of the sky, and extending her hand as she spoke.
“Yes, indeed. There are worse places to live than Rosedene,” declared the doctor, pulling forward a rocking chair for Lucy.
“You used to stay at home so closely,” Mrs. Hamilton told her guests when the party was seated, “but now you seem to go out ’most every evening, and we want to see something of you.”
“How pretty!” interrupted Lucy uneasily, calling their attention to the thin new moon as it rose above the straggling houses.
“I suppose you are missing your mother,” Mrs. Hamilton resumed when the conversation paused again. “It was so long since you had seen her. I envied you having her with you. I haven’t seen my own mother for over two years. I was surprised when the doctor told me Mrs. Merwent was going to be married, though I don’t know why I should have been. She is certainly a wonderfully well preserved woman. I suppose you and Mr. Winter will go to the wedding.”
“I don’t think so.” Lucy glanced at John and Doctor Hamilton, who had withdrawn a little from the two women and were smoking together.
“I don’t care much for the Hamiltons,” John commented, as he and Lucy were on their way home. “I want to make friends that are not so dull and commonplace. Their idea of highbrow art goes about as far as the pictures on the popular magazine covers. I think I’ll join the Craftsman’s Club. Mathews of Layard’s belongs and he’s offered several times to put my name up. It will cost fifty dollars a year dues. A lot of artists belong and it would be a good place to spend an evening now and then.”
As they were preparing to retire John returned again to the subject of society.
“I think we ought to give a little dinner, Lucy,” he said. “We have been several places and we ought to do something to pay them all back. Besides, in that way you gradually get a larger circle of acquaintances.”
“All right, John,” agreed Lucy, “if you would like to—if you think we can afford it. I’ve no dinner gown, you know.”
“Oh, go ahead and get something. We’ll make up the list of people we want tomorrow night,” he insisted.
The next evening at dinner he burst forth in a sudden impatient tirade.
“What’s the matter with Katy, Lucy?” he exclaimed. “Since your mother’s not here to push her along she seems to have forgotten how to cook! This is certainly what I call a thin dinner.”
“It isn’t Katy, John. We have just the same cooking that we used to have before Mother came. I thought better to cut down our expenses.” Lucy colored as she spoke, but looked steadfastly at him.
“Well, I’m not ready to starve yet to save a penny, even if you are!”
After the meal they considered the list of invitations for the dinner.
“Miss Powell we want, of course,” John began. “I’ll think of a man for her. Oh, yes! There’s Mathews, Layard’s head bookkeeper. He’s a bachelor. Then there’s the Hamiltons. I suppose they’ll have to come. Miss Storms we don’t want—we don’t know many people, Lucy. Let’s see—There’s Miss Lyle, and Mrs. Morris, too. They came to the tea you gave for Nannie, didn’t they? We must invite Mrs. Morris’s husband, too. I know him slightly. And we can find a man for Miss Lyle. Oh, yes. Jim Sprague. I’d rather not invite him, but I’m afraid people will talk. He used to practically live here. I guess we can’t get out of it. And we mustn’t leave out Nora Stimpson, although she’s seemed to forget that we are alive since we came out here. But she’s still at the Art School. I saw her the other day on the car. She’s on the faculty now. I’ll have to think of a man for her. Why, it’ll be quite a little dinner—just about the right size!”
The succeeding morning at the office, John handed Jim an envelope.
“Lucy is giving a little informal dinner,” he explained.
Jim read the invitation and put it in his pocket.
“I’m afraid I can’t come,” he observed after a moment’s consideration. “I was going to run over our Layard’s materials bills with Mathews Wednesday night.”
“Mr. Mathews is coming, too,” stated John stiffly, “so he won’t be able to work Wednesday night.”
“I had planned to see Wilson later in the evening,” pursued Jim, flushing. “He thinks he may want still another row of cottages built in the spring. However, I’ll see and let you know a little later.” And Jim left the office.
He took a car that passed Miss Storms’ apartment. It was a warm day.
“I hardly expected to find you in,” Jim remarked as he greeted her.
She smiled.
“You shouldn’t have found me, but the heat was stronger than my good resolutions.”
They began to talk earnestly.
“Thank you for coming, Jim,” she told him after a short conversation. He had risen and taken his hat. “I’m not invited. In fact things look as though I were dumped. I don’t know all—but you go.” She rose and laid her hand on his arm. “Don’t lose sight of that dear child,” she added seriously.
Jim nodded his head.
“You might call me up before the evening is over,” he suggested. “Neither one of them will answer the phone at a dinner party. It will give me a chance to get away in case my welcome is worn out.”
A half an hour later he entered the office.
“I think I’ll be able to come after all,” he said to John.