Miss Gibbie Gault Part 11

"No, I don't. I don't exactly know why, either. I see very little of her, and she is polite enough. Too polite. She doesn't ring right."

"Then what did you accept her invitation to tea for?" He put out his hand to bring back the plate Hedwig was removing. "What have I done that my supper should be taken from me? I'm not through."

"There some salad is now, sir." And Hedwig looked helplessly first at the head and then at the foot of the table.

"Oh, all right." He waved her away. "I just didn't want to be held up." He put his elbows on the table, and his chin on the back of his hands and looked at the girl in front, whose eyes were fastened indignantly on him. "If you don't like her why did you accept her invitation?"

"If that isn't Adamic! Why did /I/ accept her invitation? I didn't until you had done so first. You said you'd come with pleasure. I thought you meant it. You were almost gus.h.i.+ng."

"And you were almost crus.h.i.+ng. You were so indifferent I tried to be polite enough for two. When a woman hits you in the face with an invitation you don't expect a man to run, do you? I always accept, but never go if I can manage to stay away. And I generally manage. It is purely automatic, written or spoken, this 'Thank you so much. I will come with pleasure.' Some people would say it in their sleep if waked suddenly."

"Some people mean it."

"I know they do. It takes little to give some people pleasure.

Parties and picnics and teas, and even dinners, with the wrong sort of mixtures, are the breath of life to certain types. But I am like you, I don't like Mrs. Deford. She is a friend of mother's and visits her at the blink of an eye. I always have business out of the city when she is at the house. She puts her head on the side when she talks.

I can stand almost any kind of woman but that kind. She's got a tongue, too, like Mrs. McDougal's friend, one that tells all it knows and makes up what it doesn't. Why aren't you eating your salad?"

She pushed back her plate and reached for an olive from a dish near the bowl of lilacs. "I don't want it. I don't like asparagus."

"Then what in the name of heaven did you have it for?"

"You like it. Do you mean Mrs. Deford doesn't tell the truth?"

"That's what I mean. And she's got a bad memory. Great drawback to a good liar."

Mary Cary sat suddenly upright, her eyes like big turquoises, staring unbelievingly at him.

"And you were going to take supper with her to-night; going to sit at the table with some one you knew was untruthful? Wanted me to go--"

"My dear Mary--" He turned to Hedwig, who was bringing in a bowl of raspberries. "Will you please get me some tea from the pantry, Hedwig?

Your mistress is very stingy with tea. Bring it in a pitcher, will you? I have only a gla.s.s thimble to put it in, and it's more convenient to have the pitcher by my own side. What were we talking about? Was I going to sit at the table with some one I knew was untruthful? If I didn't I'd eat alone pretty often. You may be a learned lady in many things, Miss Cary, but you still have many things to learn. One is the infinite variety of liars there are in life and the many a.s.sortments in which lies may be labelled.

"My grievance against Mrs. Deford isn't merely that she is an-- exaggerater, let us say, but she's such a lover of lucre, clean or not. She can smell money on the way, and the chance of any one's getting it is sufficient cause for her cultivation of friends.h.i.+p. You don't want to know her. It's better to be polite to her, but she's a good kind to let alone." He looked at his watch. "Nine o'clock. Well, something has got to be done. What's the best fairy-tale to make up?"

"I'm not going to make up a fairy-tale." Mary Cary rose from the table, and John Maxwell, pus.h.i.+ng her chair aside, stood waiting for her to lead the way to the library. "I'm going to write her a note to-morrow and tell her we forgot. I didn't want to go, but I hate bad manners.

She just asked me because--"

"She knew I wouldn't come without you? She's got more sense than I thought. But don't be silly--there are few times in life when an untruth is justified, but many times when you don't have to tell all you know. What's to-night, anyhow?"

"Friday."

"Are you sure she didn't say Sat.u.r.day night? Sure she said Friday? Now I think of it, seems to me there was something about Sat.u.r.day. And was it seven or eight o'clock? If we will just say, 'Friday or Sat.u.r.day?'

'Friday or Sat.u.r.day?' 'Seven or eight?' 'Seven or eight?' over and over some forty or so times, we won't know what she said, and we can ask her to be certain. I'm going to ask her now. Where's your telephone?"

He rang up before she could protest.

"h.e.l.lo! that Mrs. Deford?" she heard him say, and as he waved his right hand at her, the left holding the receiver, she dropped into a chair some little distance off and waited for what was to come.

"How are you, Mrs. Deford? This is John Maxwell. Miss Cary and I are having an argument as to your invitation to supper. Is it eight o'clock to-morrow night? She says seven o'clock is the--what? What's that? /To-night?/ Good gracious! You say /to-night/ was the night and you waited an hour? In the name--Well, we must by crazy!

We've been talking for the last thirty minutes about our engagement with you, and I wasn't sure of the hour. What's that? I don't wonder you're mad. It is inexcusable, but it was my fault. I'm entirely to blame, and Miss Cary will be distressed to death to hear of our bad behavior. You know how particular she is about things of this kind and never breaks an engagement. You are going to forgive us, aren't you?

Put it all on me. It was my fault entirely. When am I going home?

Possibly to-morrow, though I'm not sure. Looking for a telegram. What?

Oh, sure I am. Will certainly see you before I go. It's awfully good of you to forgive us. Good-night. Oh yes, of course. Good-night."

He hung up the receiver and wiped his hands. "What's the matter with that? A microscope couldn't find a microbe of untruth in it. By this time to-morrow night she'll be all right."

Together they walked out on the porch, and in the damp night air Mary s.h.i.+vered slightly, and John turned back into the hall for half a moment.

"It is too cool out here for you with that thin dress on," he said, putting around her a long warm cape of come soft white material.

"Here, take this chair and lean back in it good. Are you tired?

Too tired for me to stay? I'll go if you want me to."

His penetrating eyes searched her face with sudden anxiety. It was the thing he was always watching, this look that told of spent energy. There was no fleeting shadow or hint of weariness he was not quick to understand, and to keep his strong arms at his side meant control of which she was as unconscious as a child.

"Of course I'm not tired." She lay back in the chair and put her feet on the stool he had placed for her, drawing the cape over her shoulders, but leaving her throat open. "And smoke, please. You'll be so miserable if you don't. What did she say? Was she mad?"

John took a seat on the top step of the porch, lighted his cigar, leaned back against the post, and laughed in the face opposite his.

"Mad? Hot as a hornet. But she'll cool off. We've been walloped all right, though. Could tell by her voice. What a blessed provision of nature our ears can't catch the things people say about us. I hope our ears will never be Marconi-ized. No two human beings would be on speaking terms if they were, except you and me."

She leaned forward as if something had just occurred to her.

"John, have you heard from Mr. Van Orm as to when he can begin the surveying of the streets?"

"Yes, I have, but subjects don't /have/ to be changed with a popgun." He blew out a puff of smoke and watched its soft spirals curl upward. "I had a letter from him this week. He will send down two men the first of July."

"Isn't he coming himself?"

"Is he?" John smoked in silence, looking ahead rather than at the girl beside him, and out of his face went all laughter and over it a frown swept quickly.

"I don't know. I wish he was. The Traffords say he is one of the very best civil engineers in the country, and Yorkburg doesn't at all understand how fortunate it is to have his men resurvey the town and get things in shape for the curbing and paving, and planting of trees. I am so glad he was willing to let them do it.

I think it was very nice in him."

No answer. John's eyes were straight ahead. Looking up, she saw his face and suddenly understood. For half a moment she watched him, chin down, eyes up; then she leaned back and her fingers interlaced.

"Everybody says he is such a fine man."

No answer.

"He is certainly doing splendid work. His name is at the very head of his profession, and he'll be rich some day."

"Rich now."

"Do you think"--elbows on knees and chin in the palms of her hands, she leaned toward him--"do you think Mr. Van Orm would be a nice man for a girl to marry?"

"I do not."

"I don't, either. I am so glad you think as I do." She gave a great sigh, and he looked up quickly.