The Happiest Time of Their Lives Part 12

"You'll come to dinner to-night, Papa?"

Rather hastily, Mr. Lanley said no, he couldn't; he had an engagement.

But his daughter did not let him get to the door.

"What are you going to do to-night, Papa?" she asked, firmly.

"There is a governor's meeting--"

"Two in a week, Papa?"

Suddenly Mr. Lanley dropped all pretense of not coming, and said he would be there at eight.

During the rest of the day Mathilde's heart never wholly regained its normal beat. Not only was she to see Pete again, and see him under the gaze of her united family, but she was to see this mother of his, whom he loved and admired so much. She pictured her as white-haired, benignant, brooding, the essential mother, with all her own mother's grace and charm left out, yet with these qualities not ill replaced by others which Mathilde sometimes dimly apprehended were lacking in her own beautiful parent. She looked at herself in the gla.s.s. "My son's wife," was the phrase in her mind.

On her way up-stairs to dress for dinner she tried to confide her anxieties to her mother.

"Mama," she said, "if you had a son, how would you feel toward the girl he wanted to marry?"

"Oh, I should think her a cat, of course," Adelaide answered; and added an instant later, "and I should probably be able to make him think so, too."

Mathilde sighed and went on up-stairs. Here she decided on an act of some insubordination. She would wear her best dress that evening, the dress which her mother considered too old for her. She did not want Pete's mother to think he had chosen a perfect baby.

Mr. Lanley, too, was a trifle nervous during the afternoon. He tried to say to himself that it was because the future of his darling little Mathilde was about to be settled. He shook his head, indicating that to settle the future of the young was a risky business; and then in a burst of self-knowledge he suddenly admitted that what was really making him nervous was the incident of the pier. If Mrs. Wayne referred to it, and of course there was no possible reason why she should not refer to it, Adelaide would never let him hear the last of it. It would be natural for Adelaide to think it queer that he hadn't told her about it. And the reason he hadn't told was perfectly clear: it was on that infernal pier that he had formed such an adverse opinion of Mrs. Wayne. But of course he did not wish to prejudice Adelaide; he wanted to leave her free to form her own opinions, and he was glad, excessively glad, that she had formed so favorable a one as to ask the woman to dinner. There was no question about his being glad; he surprised his servant by whistling as he put on his white waistcoat, and fastened the buckle rather more snugly than usual. Self-knowledge for the moment was not on hand.

He arrived at exactly the hour at which he always arrived, five minutes after eight, a moment not too early to embarra.s.s the hostess and not too late to endanger the dinner.

No one was in the drawing-room but Mathilde and Farron. Adelaide, for one who had been almost perfectly brought up, did sometimes commit the fault of allowing her guests to wait for her.

"'Lo, my dear," said Mr. Lanley, kissing Mathilde. "What's that you have on? Never saw it before. Not so becoming as the dress you were wearing the last time I was here."

Mathilde felt that it would be almost easier to die immediately, and was revived only when she heard Farron saying:

"Oh, don't you like this? I was just thinking I had never seen Mathilde looking so well, in her rather more mature and subtle vein."

It was just as she wished to appear, but she glanced at her stepfather, disturbed by her constant suspicion that he read her heart more clearly than any one else, more clearly than she liked.

"How shockingly late they are!" said Adelaide, suddenly appearing in the utmost splendor. She moved about, kissing her father and arranging the chairs. "Do you know, Vin, why it is that Pringle likes to make the room look as if it were arranged for a funeral? Why do you suppose they don't come?"

"Any one who arrives after Adelaide is apt to be in wrong," observed her husband.

"Well, I think it's awfully incompetent always to be waiting for other people," she returned, just laying her hand an instant on his shoulder to indicate that he alone was privileged to make fun of her.

"That perhaps is what the Waynes think," he answered.

Mathilde's heart sank a little at this. She knew her mother did not like to be kept waiting for dinner.

"When I was a young man--" began Mr. Lanley.

"It was the custom," interrupted Adelaide in exactly the same tone, "for a hostess to be in her drawing-room at least five minutes before the hour set for the arrival of the guests."

"Adelaide," her father pleaded, "I don't talk like that; at least not often."

"You would, though, if you didn't have me to correct you," she retorted.

"There's the bell at last; but it always takes people like that forever to get their wraps off."

"It's only ten minutes past eight," said Farron, and Mathilde blessed him with a look.

Mrs. Wayne came quickly into the room, so fast that her dress floated behind her; she was in black and very grand. No one would have supposed that she had murmured to Pete just before the drawing-room door was opened, "I hope they haven't run in any old relations on us."

"I'm afraid I'm late," she began.

"She always is," Pete murmured to Mathilde as he took her hand and quite openly squeezed it, and then, before Adelaide had time for the rather casual introduction she had planned, he himself put the hand he was holding into his mother's. "This is my girl, Mother," he said. They smiled at each other. Mathilde tried to say something. Mrs. Wayne stooped and kissed her. Mr. Lanley was obviously affected. Adelaide wasn't going to have any scene like that.

"Late?" she said, as if not an instant had pa.s.sed since Mrs. Wayne's entrance. "Oh, no, you're not late; exactly on time, I think. I'm only just down myself. Isn't that true, Vincent?"

Vincent was studying Mrs. Wayne, and withdrew his eyes slowly. But Adelaide's object was accomplished: no public betrothal had taken place.

Pringle announced dinner. Mr. Lanley, rather to his own surprise, found that he was insisting on giving Mrs. Wayne his arm; he was not so angry at her as he had supposed. He did not think her offensive or unfeminine or half baked or socialistic or any of the things he had been saying to himself at lengthening intervals for the last twenty-four hours.

Pete saw an opportunity, and tucked Mathilde's hand within his own arm, nipping it closely to his heart.

The very instant they were at table Adelaide looked down the alley between the candles, for the low, golden dish of hot-house fruit did not obstruct her view of Vincent, and said:

"Why have you never told me about Marty Burke?"

"Who's he?" asked Mr. Lanley, quickly, for he had been trying to start a little conversational hare of his own, just to keep the conversation away from the water-front.

"He's a splendid young super-tough in my employ," said Vincent. "What do you know about him, Adelaide?"

The guarded surprise in his tone stimulated her.

"Oh, I know all about him--as much, that is, as one ever can of a stupendous natural phenomenon."

"Where did you hear of him?"

"Hear of him? I've seen him. I saw him this morning at Mrs. Wayne's. He just dropped in while I was there and, metaphorically speaking, dragged us about by the hair of our heads."

"Some women, I believe, confess to enjoying that sensation,"

Vincent observed.

"Yes, it's exciting," answered his wife.

"It's an easy excitement to attain."

"Oh, one wants it done in good style."

Something so stimulating that it was almost hostile flashed through the interchange.