Fairy Prince and Other Stories Part 30

"V--very," said the Lady. Quite suddenly she looked up at him. Her cheeks were pink. She seemed to want to speak but didn't know quite how.

She looked more surprised than ever. She bent forward very suddenly and stared and stared at him.

"Why--Why you're the gentleman," she said, "who was in the Fruit Store the day I bought the Alligator pears and dropped my pocket-book down behind the trash-barrel?"

"Also the day you bought the Red Mackintosh Apples," said our Uncle Peter. "The Grocer cheated you outrageously on them.--Also the day you wore the bunch of white violets and p.r.i.c.ked your finger so brutally,--also the day on the ferry when there was a slight collision with a tug-boat and I had the privilege of--of----."

The Lady looked very haughty.

"It was the day of the Alligator Pears--that I referred to," she said.

"The only day in my recollection!" Very positively she said it,--"the only day in my recollection." But all the time that she said it her cheeks got pinker and pinker. It was when she looked in the gla.s.s and saw how mistaken her positiveness looked that her cheeks got so pink.

Tap--Tap--Tap her foot stamped on the rug. "Did--Did you know who it was going to be----when you brought the dog?" she said. "That is,--did you know when you first saw the advertis.e.m.e.nt in the paper." Her white forehead got all black and frowny. "How in the world did you know--my name?" she said.

Our Uncle Peter made an expression on his face. It was the expression that our Mother calls his "Third-Helping-of-Apple-Pie Expression,"--bold and unashamed.

"I asked the Grocer," he said.

"It was a--a great liberty," said the Lady.

"Was it?" said our Uncle Peter. He didn't seem as sorry as you'd have expected.

The Lady looked at Carol. The Lady looked at me.

"How many children have you?" she said.

"None of my own," said our Uncle Peter. "But three of my brother Philip's,--Carol and Ruthy as here observed, and Rosalee aet. eighteen who is at present in Cuba engaging herself to be married."

"O--h," said the Lady.

"I am in short," said our Uncle Peter, "that object of Romance and Pity popularly known as a 'Bachelor Uncle.'"

"O--h," said the Lady. She seemed more relieved than you'd have supposed.

"But in my own case, of course--" said our Uncle Peter.

In the very midst of his own case he stopped right off short to look all around the room again as though he was counting how heavy the toys were and how heavy the money was that had bought the toys. All the twinkle came back to his eyes.

"But in my own case," he said, "I've always known ahead--of course--for a very long time--that I was going to have 'em.--Learned to sit lightly on the idea,--re-balance my prejudices,--re-adjust my--"

"Have--what?" gasped the Lady.

"Nephews and nieces," said our Uncle Peter.

"O--h," said the Lady.

"Had their names all selected I mean," explained our Uncle Peter. "Their virtues, their vices, their avocations, all decided upon.----Ruthy of course might have done with less freckles, and Carol here doesn't quite come up to specifications yet concerning muscle and brawn--and it was never my original intention of course that any young whipper-snapper niece of mine should engage herself to the first boy she fell in love with.--But taken all in all,--all in all I say--"

"I think," frowned the Lady, "you are perfectly----absurd."

The word "absurd" didn't seem to be at all the word she meant to say.

She tried to bite it back but got it all mixed up with a little giggle.

She bit the giggle instead. It twisted her mouth like a bitter taste.

Our Uncle Peter looked very sympathetic.

"You ought to get away somewhere on a journey," he said. "There's nothing like it as a tonic for the mind. Even if it's a place you don't like very much it clarifies the vision so,--dissipates all one's minor worries."

"--Minor worries?" said the Lady.

"Travel! Yes that's the thing!" said our Uncle Peter quite positively.

All in a minute he seemed to rustle with time tables and maps and smell of cinders and railroad tickets. "Now there's Bermuda for instance!" he suggested. "Just a month of blue waters and white sand would put the roses back in your cheeks.--And d.i.c.ky--"

"Impossible," said the Lady.

"Or if Bermuda's too far," insisted our Uncle Peter. "What about Atlantic City? Think how d.i.c.ky would enjoy romping on the board walk--while you followed more sedately of course in a luxurious wheel chair!--The most diverting place in the world!--Yes quite surely you must go to Atlantic City!"

The Lady made a little gasp as though her Patience was bursted.

"You don't seem to understand," she said. "I tell you it's quite impossible!"

"W-H-Y?" said our Uncle Peter. He said it sharply like a Teacher. It HAD to be answered.

The Lady looked up. She looked down. She looked sideways. She wrung her hands in her lap. Her face got sort of white.

"It isn't very kind of you," she said, "to force me so to a confession of poverty."

"'Poverty'?" laughed our Uncle Peter. He looked around at the furniture,--at the toys,--at the pictures. It was at most everything that he looked around. He seemed to be very cheerful about it.

The Lady didn't like his cheerfulness.

"Oh I've always had a little for myself," she explained. "Enough for one person to live very simply on. But NOW----? With this strange little boy on my hands,--I--I intend to go to work!"

"Go to----work?" said our Uncle Peter. "WORK?" He said it with a sort of a hoot. "Work? Work? Why, what in the world could YOU do?"

"I can crochet," said the Lady proudly. "And embroider. I can mend. I can play the piano. And really you know I can make the most beautiful pies."

"Apple pies," said our Uncle Peter.

"Apple pies," said the Lady. Like a handful of black tissue paper she crumpled up suddenly in her chair. Her shoulders shook and shook. The sound she made was like a sob going down and a laugh coming up. "I'm not crying," she said, "because it's so hard--but b--because the idea is so f--funny."

"F--F--Funny?" said our Uncle Peter. "It's preposterous! It's gro--tesque! It's--it's fantastic!"

He began to walk very fast from the book-case to the window and from the window back to the book-case again. It wasn't till he'd stubbed his toe twice on a toy Ferris Wheel that the twinkle came back to his eyes.

"Carol!" he said. "Ruthy!--In consideration of the reduced circ.u.mstances in which this very pleasant Lady finds herself don't you think that you could afford to offer her a reduced price on the dog,--your original profit on the deal being as noted $49.50?"

The Lady jumped to her feet.

"Oh no--no--no!" she said. "Not for a moment! Fifty dollars is what I offered! And fifty dollars it shall be! All dogs I'm sure are worth fifty dollars. Especially if they don't sleep! Why all the other dogs that people brought me did nothing except sleep! On my sofas! In my chairs! Under my tables! Night or day you couldn't drop even so much as a handkerchief on the floor that one or the other of them didn't camp right down and go to sleep on it! Oh, no--no--no," protested the Lady, "whatever my faults, a bargain is a bargain and----"