Part 11

“Why, yes indeed, Mamma. Her name is always among those who were at the biggest functions. The McCullochs, the Porters, the Flemwells, and all the other social leaders try to get her. I’ve seen the invitations. Mrs. Porter used to come to the flat to persuade her to give up a board meeting of some committee, to help receive at her things.”

“She has a very aristocratic manner,” acknowledged Nannie. “Shall we take a car?”

“All right,” agreed Lucy. In a few minutes the two were in the big department store.

“Let’s go to a matinée,” suggested Nannie when they had made their purchases. “We’ll be just in time if we hurry through our lunch.”

“Let’s see if we’ve money enough for the tickets,” considered Lucy, searching through her purse. “All right,” she decided. “What play do you want to see?”

“Why it makes no difference to me, Lucy. You choose.” “Nazimova is playing _Hedda Gabler_ at the Standard. This is the end of the season and just about our last chance,” said Lucy. “I’ve been wanting to see the play ever since I read it at Miss Storms’. Shall we go there?”

“Aren’t there any musical comedies playing now?” inquired Nannie. “They have such beautiful costumes in them.”

“We can see as we are eating,” planned Lucy, leading the way into a small restaurant and tea room. “We’ll look at a paper.”

“What a cheap looking place!” commented Mrs. Merwent, staring around as they sat down.

“If we go to a dear one we’ll have to give up the matinée,” retorted Lucy rather wearily.

“Oh, I didn’t mean that I mind,” returned Nannie quickly. “You always try to twist everything I say into something mean, Lucy,” she added petulantly.

“Mamma, please let’s not quarrel again,” pleaded Lucy. “I’m so tired.”

“I’m sure _I’ve_ not been trying to quarrel. I’ve been as nice as I knew how to be all day. You’re the one who always seems to want to quarrel.”

The waitress came up with a menu.

Lucy scrutinized her mother in silence. Then, turning to the waitress who had come back to the table, she gave an order and asked for a morning paper.

Nannie preserved an injured silence until the food was placed before her, but she could not resist its expansive effect.

Lucy picked up the paper and scanned it.

“There are no musical comedies playing near here, Mamma,” she announced. “The only other theatre near enough is giving a revival of _As You Like It_. The rest are too far away for us to get there before the curtain goes up.”

“Well, let’s see Nazimova then,” conceded Mrs. Merwent. “These sandwiches are so good I could eat a dozen!”

Lucy had ended her meal.

“We’ll be late if you do!” she said warningly. “It’s half past one.”

“Wait a minute, Lucy. You hurry me so I hardly know what I’m eating,” Nannie protested. Only the highest priced seats were left when they reached the theatre, and, by the time they were in their places, the curtain had risen and the first act was in progress.

“If I’d known we were going to be late I wouldn’t have come,” grumbled Nannie. “I hate to come in after a piece is started. It’s so hard to get the threads of the plot.”

During the progress of the play Mrs. Merwent insisted on whispering personal remarks regarding the actors and actresses, until Lucy could no longer endure it with equanimity.

“Please, Mamma, do wait till after the act is over!” she requested irritably.

“I never saw any one in my life who was so hard to get along with as you,” murmured Nannie in a savage undertone. After this she preserved an injured silence, not speaking again until they had reached home.

Here Lucy changed into her house dress and apron and began dinner, and Nannie went to her room.

At the end of an hour Mrs. Merwent appeared in a pretty light green demi-toilette. On Dimmie’s return from the Hamiltons’ Lucy had changed his clothes and he too was spotless.

As John’s step was heard, Nannie ran to the door. Dimmie followed rather timidly. When John entered the dining room it was with one hand on Nannie’s arm, while Dimmie clung to his other hand.

“How’s everybody?” John asked. “You look like a débutante, Nannie.”

“Everybody’s well,” she replied. “We’ve been to a matinée.”

“I didn’t go,” volunteered Dimmie. “I stayed with Mrs. Hamilton.”

At this juncture Lucy came in with a dish from the kitchen.

“_You_ look like you’d been to a funeral,” said John, regarding her. “What’s the matter?”

“I have a slight headache, but it’s nothing. Let’s have dinner.”

When they were seated at the table she began to talk with determined agreeableness.

“We went to see Nazimova as Hedda Gabler. She’s wonderful.” “And that dress she wore in the last act!” interrupted Nannie. “Did you get a good look at it, Lucy? It was black silk with tiny pink rosebuds.”

“But didn’t you think her portrayal of Hedda was splendid?” persisted Lucy.

“I didn’t like the piece,” returned Mrs. Merwent. “I don’t enjoy sad things.”

“She certainly has a marvellous temperament. Don’t you think so, John?” pursued Lucy.

“Yes. I admired her as Nora very much.”

“She’s a brunette,” observed Nannie. “Now what are you laughing at, Lucy? You ridicule everything I say! I’m sure I don’t see anything funny in what I said. And John is laughing too!”

“We weren’t ridiculing you, Mamma,” said Lucy.

“No! I think it was cute!” supplemented John warmly. “I like naïveté. People are generally so sophisticated.”

“Well, _you_ like me a little, anyway. Don’t you, John?”

“I should say I did, Nannie!”

“So do I,” added Lucy.

“Thank you, John,” said Nannie, smiling again.

* * * * *

The next evening Nannie and John walked about the front yard waiting for Lucy to announce dinner. It was just after sunset and the tints in the sky were gorgeous.

“Oh look at the lovely delicate mauve tint under that cloud!” exclaimed John, pointing. Lucy joined them as he was speaking.

“Yes,” agreed Nannie. “It’s just the color of a dress I once had. Do you remember that little dress, Lucy?”

“Yes, Mamma.” Lucy’s voice was weary. “Come on, or dinner will get cold,” she added.

“Speaking of colors, what did you ever paint your house that horrid shade for?” Nannie asked a moment later, when the family was seated and she was serving the plates.

“Why I don’t think it’s horrid,” objected Lucy. “We all agreed it was pretty. Jim selected it and----”

“Yes!” sneered Mrs. Merwent, “Mr. Sprague has to be pleased even in the color of your house!” Lucy was pale and silent.

“I’ve thought myself since that a slate grey would have been more effective,” said John.

“Why, John, you were the most enthusiastic of all over this fawn and brown color scheme!” defended Lucy.

“Well? Is that any reason why I shouldn’t change my mind?” demanded John sharply.

“It certainly is!” retorted Lucy with equal emphasis. “People ought to know their own minds.”

“Like you!” snapped John.

“Dear me,” cooed Nannie, “you two have your little tiffs like other people! I had always thought you _so_ happy.”

Lucy burst into tears and left the table.

After finishing his meal, John went to the door of Lucy’s room and found it locked. He knocked.

“Please go away, John,” called Lucy.

“But, Lucy, you shouldn’t get angry at every suggestion Nannie makes.”

“I can’t talk, John. I’m _so_ tired.”

John returned to Nannie.

“Let’s us two wash the dishes,” he proposed. Dimmie had gone to sleep in the Morris chair.

“Well, wait a minute, John. There was so much of this dessert left I thought I’d take another helping,” Nannie explained, beginning to eat again.

By the time they had cleaned the dishes and undressed Dimmie Nannie had reiterated a favorite opinion.

“John, you _must_ get a servant for Lucy. I help her all I can but the work is too heavy for her.”

Lucy objected strenuously to the scheme when it was brought up by John the following morning. She was proud of her plan of putting the amount of a servant’s wages in the bank every month.

“Well, Lucy, it’s only for your own good that I suggested it,” argued Nannie.

“I can do the work all right,” Lucy protested. “I’ve not been very well lately, but I’ll be all right.”

“I agree with Nannie,” decided John. “It will be a good thing for her, too, for then you can go out with her more. She’s had to stay in most of the time because there was no one to go with.”

“I’m not thinking of myself at all, John,” put in Nannie.

“I know you’re not,” returned John, “but we are.”

“But, John,” demurred Lucy, “we can’t afford it. Our bills are getting bigger every week.”

“Well, a few dollars a month for servant hire isn’t going to make any appreciable difference.”

“It isn’t only the wages, John, but a servant eats, and wastes, and steals, and there are a lot of things to be thought of!” Lucy began to weep.

“There! That’s an example. You’re all nervous and worn out and ready to blow up at any time,” said John.

“Yes! And her friends blame it on me!” Nannie interrupted. “Mr. Sprague and that Miss Storms both told _me_ that Lucy was working too hard.”

“I’d be obliged if both of them would attend to their own business,” remarked John testily. “Well, it’s settled, and I’ll send a girl out at once.”

“Please don’t, John,” begged Lucy as she followed him into the hall a moment later. He took his hat from the rack.

“Yes, I will,” he repeated, laughing. “Good-bye,” and he was gone.

John, to Lucy’s relief, neglected to put into immediate execution his threat of hiring a servant. She tried to conceal from him the extent of her fear and perplexity as he seemed to regard her concern for their affairs as a justification of his intention, and to evade Nannie’s persistence was even more difficult.

XVII

Late in the afternoon of the first day of the month, Mrs. Merwent found her daughter bending over some papers on the writing table in the living room.

“What are you looking so cross about?” Nannie asked as she entered the room.

“I didn’t know I was looking cross,” said Lucy. “I was worried.”

“Well, you were, and you oughtn’t to do it. The lines on your forehead are already deeper than they are on mine. What in the world have you got to worry over? If your life had been like mine you might have a right to worry! With a husband like John you ought to be as happy as a bird.”

Lucy did not reply.

“What is it especially that’s worrying you?” Nannie asked again.

“I’m worried about finances,” answered Lucy. “Our grocery bills have already doubled and extra expenses have more than trebled.”

“Well, I certainly hope that _my_ coming hasn’t had anything to do with it, Lucy.”

Lucy glanced up hesitatingly. “Well, to be frank, Mamma, we have a good many people here at odd times since you came,” she said with sudden resolution, “and I do wish you wouldn’t always be encouraging John to spend money.”

“_I_ encourage John to spend money!” exclaimed Nannie. “I must say that’s a considerate way to talk to a guest, especially when it’s your own mother, and isolated as I am! You’re very kind and thoughtful. Very, Lucy!”

“Listen, Mamma,” Lucy began patiently.

“I should think ordinary tact would keep you from saying such things as that, Lucy, even if I were as callous as you seem to think, but when I’ve tried so hard to help you----” Nannie was close to tears.

Lucy sighed.

“Such a speech is complimentary to your husband, too,” persisted Nannie.

“Now, see here, Mamma,” said Lucy, stung by the last remark, “I didn’t mean anything you seem to imply, and if you can’t understand, we won’t talk any more about it.”

“Oh, very well, Lucy! Of course _I’m_ to blame as usual. _I_ started it. This is the gratitude I get for overlooking the past and coming here. Poor Mamma, until the day of her death, never could get over the way you treated _her_, and why should I expect anything different? Well, it’s just as you like!” Nannie rose and swept into the hall.

Before she could ascend the stairs, John’s step was heard on the porch and the front door was unlocked.

“Hello, Nannie!” he almost shouted. “Get your best bib and tucker on. We’re going to see the _Madcap Girl_! It’s a dandy clear evening. You said you wanted to see it and I’ve got tickets. Where’s Lucy? Let’s have dinner at once.” and he passed on into the dining room where Nannie followed him.

Lucy, who had gone into the kitchen, reappeared.

“Hurry up dinner, Lucy.” John’s manner was impatient. “We’re going to the theatre.”

She stopped, with a dish in her hand, and considered an instant.

“What about Dimmie?” she asked. John frowned irritably.

“Hang Dimmie!” he ejaculated, petulantly. “I should think if Mrs. Hamilton is such a friend as you say she might take care of him one night!” Again Lucy was silent a moment.

“All right,” she acquiesced finally.

“You don’t seem very jubilant about it,” commented Nannie, who was now all smiles. “_I_ appreciate it,” she added.

When they were seated at the table John produced the tickets.

“Oh! A box!” cried Nannie, examining them gleefully. “How nice! I’ve wanted to see the _Madcap Girl_ for so long!” “It’s certainly a great play, by all accounts,” observed Lucy acidly.

“Why, everybody says the costumes are lovely, and there are some of the newest dances introduced,” contended Nannie. “I’ve been crazy to see it.”

“We can’t afford a box, and besides I’ve no clothes suitable for a box.” Lucy’s voice grew sharper with each word. “If you _would_ throw away money, John, why didn’t you pick out something worth seeing? I’d rather have seen Ethel Barrymore in _Midchannel_, even if I sat in the gallery, than this nasty, silly thing in the best box in the house!”

“Why, you can see _Midchannel_ too,” interrupted John, somewhat crestfallen.

“No, I can’t. We’ve spent twice as much on theatres already this month as we ought to in half a year!”

“Well, Lucy, Nannie especially wanted to see this play, and I think we ought _sometimes_ to sacrifice our own tastes for her.”

“I’m sure I didn’t know John was going to get tickets when I innocently said I had wanted to see the play,” said Nannie. “I don’t see that I am to blame for it.”

“No one’s to blame, Nannie,” championed John. Then, turning to Lucy, “I don’t know what’s gotten into you lately, Lucy. If you don’t want to go, say so.”

“Yes, indeed,” chimed in Nannie. “I don’t need to go. It’s not a matter of life and death. In fact I have had a little headache anyway, although _I_ wouldn’t _think_ of spoiling the evening after poor, dear John has been so thoughtful.”

“Well, what are you going to do?” demanded John in the captious tone he had come to use more and more often of late.

Lucy glanced at her mother before speaking.

“I’ll go,” she decided, rising from the table, “that is if Mrs. Hamilton is going to be at home.”

As Nannie rose also a glance of sympathetic understanding passed between her and John.

The two women ascended the stairs.

Lucy prepared Dimmie for the night, and, before changing her clothes for the street, went out the back way and through an alley gate into the Hamiltons’ yard. Dr. Hamilton called to her from the porch and she made her request. She returned home without telling John the result of her mission but when she dressed herself and descended to the living room she found him waiting. She wore a blue foulard dress and a black hat and as she came in she was drawing on her gloves.

“Mrs. Hamilton will be over here in a moment,” she informed him coldly in answer to his glance of inquiry. The two sat in silence as they waited for Mrs. Merwent to descend and the neighbor to arrive.

“I’m afraid we’ll be late,” remarked John regretfully, after a restless pause. “When did Mrs. Hamilton say she could come? Hadn’t you better call Nannie?”

“Mother knows perfectly well what time it is,” responded Lucy, and added, “Mrs. Hamilton had just come in from a long day in town and had to change her dress.”

“You’re not very considerate of Nannie, Lucy.”

“Well, you make up for it!” Lucy’s manner as she said this was a surprise to John.

“Lucy, I don’t understand you at all.”

“Be careful not to try too hard, John.”

“Oh, well, if you want to be sarcastic, all right!” Silence descended again.

Mrs. Hamilton entered the house through the kitchen where Lucy had left a door ajar for her. She looked tired but apologized good humoredly for her delay. John greeted her stiffly.

“The doctor may be called out,” she explained, “in which case he’ll carry Dimmie over to our place.” Lucy bit her lips.

“I appreciate so much your doing this,” she said earnestly.

“My goodness! What are friends for!” Mrs. Hamilton laughed, trying to draw John into the conversation.

After a quarter of an hour had elapsed Lucy walked into the hall and called, “We’re waiting, Mamma.”

“Wait a minute, Lucy. You hurry me so I can’t half dress,” Nannie shouted back.

When she finally appeared she wore a grey and green evening gown, a grey opera cloak, and grey satin slippers.

She greeted plainly garbed Mrs. Hamilton with unusual geniality. “We really ought to have a machine to go in!” John exclaimed when he saw Nannie.

“Oh, no,” said Nannie cheerfully. “We’ll get through all right--although it’s dear of you to think of such things, John.”

When they were seated in the train John said, “Jim is going, too. He thought he couldn’t leave his work but I persuaded him.”

“Did you tell him we were _all_ coming?” queried Nannie.

“Oh, yes,” John answered.

Jim, in evening clothes, met them at the station.

“You go ahead with Lucy,” he suggested to John, after greetings were exchanged. “You’ve got the tickets.”

“No. You go with Lucy,” said John, “and I’ll come on with Nannie.”

By the time they reached the theatre and entered their box the overture was ending. The curtain rose as they seated themselves.

“Now, didn’t you like it?” Nannie asked Lucy as the curtain fell on the final tableau of the first act.

“I certainly didn’t like that song,” returned Lucy.

“What song? The one about the butterfly?”

“No. The other one, ‘What Would Robinson Crusoe Have Done?’.”

“Why, I thought it was cute.”

“It was vulgar.”

“Why, I didn’t think of it’s being vulgar till you spoke of it just now.” Nannie smiled at John.

“It sure was,” said Jim, rising. “May I go and smoke?” he asked Lucy.

“Yes,” she replied.

“And I, too,” said John.

“You sure can, John,” smiled Nannie.

“Didn’t you think the dresses in that yachting scene were just grand?” she continued when the men had left her and Lucy alone.

“Yes,” agreed Lucy absently.

Nannie began to study the audience through her opera glass. “Why, there’s Miss Powell!” she ejaculated in a pleased tone. “She’s bowing to us. Don’t you see her, Lucy?”

“No,” answered Lucy, barely glancing in the direction her mother indicated.

Nothing more was said until John and Jim appeared.

“Now let’s go and have a little supper,” John proposed when the performance was at an end.

“That will be delightful!” cried Nannie, clapping her hands.

Lucy looked at John.

“We’ll get home so late,” she objected, “and Mrs. Hamilton can’t leave until we get back.”

“Darn Mrs. Hamilton!” he declared. “She’s probably carried Dimmie over to her house and there’s plenty of time before the last train.”

“I don’t want any supper,” persisted Lucy.

“Oh, come on, Lucy!” said John with his newly acquired querulousness. “What do you want to spoil everything for?”

“But I’d rather not,” Lucy insisted.

“Why?”

“Well, I have a headache, for one thing.”

“All right,” acquiesced Nannie, in the tone of a patient martyr. “Let’s go home then.”

“It’s a shame!” John asserted. “Your evening will be spoiled, Nannie.”

“Oh, my pleasure don’t matter, John. If Lucy would rather not it’s all right.”

“I’ll take Lucy home and you two can stay,” interrupted Jim in a rather aggressive tone.

“Oh, no,” refused Mrs. Merwent. “You needn’t do that. We’ll go.”

“I’m not very strong for eating at this hour myself,” Jim continued, “and I don’t mind seeing Lucy home a bit.”

“Well, all right, Jim--if you don’t mind,” agreed John, helping Nannie with her opera cloak.

In the foyer they met Miss Powell, in an elegant black décolleté gown, and an opera cloak of old rose.

“Why, how do you do, Mrs. Merwent!” She came up to Nannie and shook hands. “I’m so glad to see you.” Then, turning to John and Lucy, “Mr. Winter, Mrs. Winter.” “You know Mr. Sprague, Miss Powell,” said Lucy.

“Why, yes. How do you do, Mr. Sprague?” She turned to Nannie again.

“How are you enjoying your stay in Chicago by this time, Mrs. Merwent?”

“Oh, very much, thank you,” replied Nannie.

“You are looking so well,” Miss Powell pursued. “I declare I’m jealous. No one would ever dream of taking you for Mrs. Winter’s mother.”

“Thank you,” cooed Nannie once more.

“Won’t you have some supper with us?” John invited. “We’ll see you safely home afterwards.”

“Oh, no, thank you very much. My brother is waiting for me. I must run!” And with a smile and handshake, Miss Powell was gone.

“Come on, Lucy,” urged Jim, taking her arm. The two left the theatre, John and Nannie going in the opposite direction, toward a fashionable restaurant.

* * * * *

Jim and Lucy were both very quiet in the car that took them toward Rosedene. It was moonlight outside. Jim scrutinized Lucy’s profile a long while as she stared through the window, but he said nothing. When they had alighted at their station and walked to the house, even after the door was unlocked, Jim delayed a little on the porch, as if hoping that Lucy would invite him in. But she did not.

It was very still down the street. Rosedene seemed to be asleep. On the side of the house toward the country stretched the dim, misty vista of a meadow, with here and there real estate agents’ sign boards looming like crucified ghosts. The air had a tang of cold that belied the promise of the summer which, according to the calendar, was already upon them.

“Thank you so much for bringing me home,” was all Lucy said.

“Thank you for letting me,” he responded. “You know I would thank you for letting me do more, Lucy.”

“I know, Jim.” Her tone was frank and friendly.

“Lucy----”

“What, Jim?” “Oh, well--nothing. Good-bye,” and he held out his hand.

Lucy put hers in it. His clasp was unwontedly warm. As he turned away and she went into the hall she felt her fingers tingle.

Mrs. Hamilton had remained upstairs near Dimmie and when Lucy entered the bedroom was seated in a rocking chair with her eyes closed wearily. She started and looked up.

“I’m so sorry!” Lucy began feelingly, but Mrs. Hamilton interrupted her.