Come Out of the Kitchen! Part 8

Tucker was now all suavity.

"I'm afraid, after all," he began, sitting down and swinging one leg over the other, "that you won't be able to keep that young person. I'm afraid Mrs. Falkener was right. Women know these things at a glance."

"What things?"

"Why, I mean that in spite of her good dinner, I'm afraid your cook, Burt, is not--Well, I'd better tell you just what is in my mind."

"Surely, if you can," said his host and client.

"I went out for a little while about dusk on the back piazza, which you know is just above the kitchen, and a conversation below is audible there. At first I did not pay much attention to the murmur of voices, but gradually I became aware that some one was making love to Jane-Ellen--"

"Who was it?" asked Crane. "That wretched boy? That smug butler?"

"Alas, no," said Tucker. "If it had been one of the other servants I should not have thought it much harm. Unhappily, it was a young gentleman, a person so much her social superior--Well, my dear fellow, you get the idea."

"No one you knew, of course?"

"I never saw him before."

"How did you see him at all?"

This was the question that Tucker had been antic.i.p.ating.

"Why, to tell you the truth, Burt," he said, "when I realized what was going on, I thought it my duty for your sake to find out. I looked over the railing--and just at the psychological moment when he kissed her."

Crane was tapping a cigarette thoughtfully on the palm of his hand, and did not at once answer. When he did, he looked up with a smile, and said:

"Lucky dog, is what I say, Tuck."

"I don't think," answered his friend, "that that is quite the right att.i.tude for you to a.s.sume."

"What do you think I should do?"

"Dismiss the girl."

Another pause.

"Or," added Tucker, magnanimously, "if you shrink from the interview, I shall be very glad to do it for you."

Crane looked up.

"No, thank you," he said. "I think you have done quite enough. I should not dream of imposing upon you further." He walked to the bell and rang it. Smithfield appeared.

"Tell the cook I want to see her," he said.

After a brief absence Smithfield returned.

"I beg pardon, sir," he said, "but the cook says if she leaves dinner now it will be spoiled, and won't after dinner do?"

Crane nodded.

"You know," said Tucker when they were again alone, "it is not always necessary to tell servants why you are dispensing with their services.

You might say--"

Much to his surprise, Crane interrupted him with a laugh.

"My dear Tuck," he said, "you don't really suppose, do you, that I am going to dismiss that peerless woman just because you saw an ill-mannered fellow kiss her? I shall administer a telling rebuke with a slight sketch of my notions on female deportment. It would take more than that to induce me to send her away. Indeed, I was thinking of taking her North with me."

This was a serious suggestion, but Tucker could think of no better way to meet it than to raise his eyebrows; and Crane went off whistling to dress for dinner.

He whistled not only going upstairs, but he whistled in his bath and while he was shaving. The sound annoyed Tucker in the next room.

"It almost seems," he thought, "as if he were glad to see the woman again on any terms." And yet, he, Tucker, knew that she considered Crane quite a commonplace young man--not at all like a hero in the third act.

The way Crane had taken his suggestions was distressing. Tucker did not feel that he thoroughly understood what was in the younger man's mind.

His first intention to tell Mrs. Falkener nothing began to fade. It would have been all very well if Burton had been sensible and had been willing to send the cook away and he, Tucker, had been able to engage her, to ignore the whole matter to Mrs. Falkener. Indeed, it would have been hard to explain it. But, of course, if Burton was going to be obstinate about it, Mrs. Falkener's aid might be absolutely necessary.

"After all," he thought, "candor is the best policy among friends."

He dressed quickly and was not mistaken in his belief that Mrs.

Falkener would have done the same. She was waiting for him in the drawing-room. They had a clear fifteen minutes before dinner.

"Now tell me, my dear Solon," she said, "just what you think of the situation."

"I think badly of it."

"Yes," said Mrs. Falkener, not yet quite appreciating the seriousness of his tone. "I do, myself. That idiotic housemaid, Lily--I could have told him that name would never do--hooked me twice wrong, and left my daughter's dirty boots on top of her best tea-gown."

"Ah, if incompetence were all we had to complain of!"

"The cook?"

"Is perfection, as far as cooking goes. But in other respect--Really, my dear Mrs. Falkener, I am in doubt whether you should let your daughter stay in this house--at least, until Burton comes to his senses."

"You must tell me just what you mean."

Tucker decided to tell the story reluctantly.

"Why, it happened this afternoon, Burton was away with his horses, and quite by accident I came upon his pretty cook in the arms of a strange young man, a person vastly her social superior, one of the young landholders of the neighborhood, I should say. Seemed to a.s.sume the most confident right to be in Burton's kitchen--a man he may know in the hunting field, may have to dinner to-morrow. I don't know who he is, but certainly a gentleman."

"How very unpleasant," said Mrs. Falkener. "Did the woman take in that you had detected her?"

"Yes, and seemed quite unabashed."

"And now I suppose you are hesitating whether or not to tell Burton?"

Tucker was naturally cautious.

"And what would you advise?"