Angela's Business Part 12

And the Young Wife slowly added: "It'll be years before he gets his head above water again. And that's my doing, Charles,--I, who'd have cut off my right arm to help him the least bit."

Charles scolded her roundly for her morbidness. "Great heavens!--you must know _he_ could never think that way! Look how you have helped him!

If your health went, you gave it to him--let him hold that to his heart!

There's Paulie and the baby, that you brought him, more than compensating--"

But Mary's sister broke this argument with her old laugh.

"Don't tempt me, Charles! I'm all kinds of a hypocrite but that kind! Of course, I wanted children a great deal more than Harold, and they're my compensation--for everything--not his at all. You know all that perfectly well. No, no," said f.a.n.n.y, lowering her voice as Angela's returning steps were heard. "If Harold ever tires of me, I'll go, you may be sure. He won't find me clamping on his shoulders, claiming to be taken care of for life because of my two little darlings...."

Charles had expected to walk home with f.a.n.n.y, continuing the sad but interesting talk, but he was frustrated in that intention by the arrival of an escort of f.a.n.n.y's own. This proved to be none other than Mr.

Tilletts.

It developed that the seeking widower, who was known as a sort of public Former Suitor, had called on f.a.n.n.y this evening, and, finding her about to go out, had begged the privilege of squiring her to and fro. Had Angela understood this in advance, how willingly would she have raised Three-Hand to a Table! But at least she could do her best now to remove from Mr. Tilletts's mind the idea that she was rude,--derived at the Redmantle Club, where she had made her unfortunate mistake,--and apparently she was successful, for Charles heard the plump seeker say, "May I call?" quite distinctly, as they moved into the hall.

The door shut on a chorus of good-nights.

The bridge-party was over; and it was only quarter of eleven. Charles turned toward the hat-rack and the Studio. And in turning, he surprised a look in his hostess's dark eyes, which seemed to say, in the most ingenuous way: "At last, a few minutes to ourselves!"

All evening, he had been aware of a subtly more personal note in Miss Angela's manner; a coyer and engagingly proprietary note, which he, with his known dispa.s.sionateness toward this s.e.x, considered as intended for f.a.n.n.y Warder's benefit. Charles had not been annoyed by this: few men repel the adoration of a pretty girl. And now this soft simple expectancy of hers, this girlish lingering over her somewhat pathetic party, seemed beyond his kind heart (as he would have put it) to disappoint. "You're not going!--it's so early!" she exclaimed, and coquetted prettily enough: "I'd think you were displeased with me--promising to have Cousin Mary for you, and then not doing it!... But you don't mind _very_ much, do you?"

Kindly Charles capitulated at once. "Pay my party-call right now--?" he threw out, gallant and yet thrifty withal. "If you're sure I'm not keeping you up...."

So these two reentered Miss Angela's little parlor, with its sleeping-car shape and too prominent Latrobe heater: a room poor enough in itself, but having an inst.i.tutional significance when considered as the Waiting Room of the Womanly Woman. Here they sat down, side by side, upon a dented sofa. And here, before a great while, there took place a somewhat strange occurrence.

There began an animated flow of girlish chatter.

"I haven't seen you on Was.h.i.+ngton Street for three days now, Mr.

Garrott. I believe you're avoiding me! I met Mr. Manford this afternoon, and what do you think he said? That he couldn't play bridge as well as he could build them, and was afraid he'd be mobbed at a party! I don't think he _could_ play any worse than f.a.n.n.y, do you? But Mr. Garrott, why does he want to go to _Wyoming_? I'd _lots_ rather go to New York, if I were a man! I asked him if that river out there he was going to dam was pretty, and he said he'd send me a picture post-card of it, when he went. But I suppose he'll forget all about it...."

Mr. Garrott, pleasantly relaxed, made suitable replies as need arose. In his scientific way, he was noting how fine and clear Miss Angela's skin was, what s.h.i.+ning soft eyes she had, how soothing and sweet was her voice. Certainly this girl did not try to create the air that she was your manly superior, or address you like a Self-Made Man reproving his wife.

"f.a.n.n.y's broken so dreadfully, hasn't she? She was so lovely and attractive as a girl. Tommy was crazy about her when she visited us in Mitch.e.l.lton, a long time ago. He gave her the loveliest presents! But Tommy was always the most generous boy. They were getting up a drinking-fountain as a memorial to Major Beesom--he was postmaster for years and years, you know--and Tommy headed the list with twenty-five dollars, and he was only making forty a month! I just wish you could have known Major Beesom! I know you'd want to put him in a book. Mr.

Garrott, I'm _so_ anxious to read some of your stories! What are your heroines like, generally?"

Out of which, she said presently, laughing and whisking her hand behind her back:--

"You were looking at my ring!"

"Why not?" said Mr. Garrott, starting a little. "A cat may look at a ring."

That was reasonable surely. Angela, after a few teasing pretenses, held up her modest gimcrack for him to see. And Charles, naturally, accepted the hand so presented.

As to what subsequently occurred, there was always a divided house within the many-sided Charles. But all his sides insisted that, at this point, he had no interest in the matter whatever; some held that he had not even seen the ring till she called attention to it. Now, bending over the hand, he examined it, and said:--

"Well! This is news to me, you know!"

"Not at all!" laughed the owner of the ring. "Why, what do you mean?"

"I've seen an engagement ring once before, you see."

"You're very clever! But--does it have to follow that I'm engaged?"

"That was the rule, in my day."

"You don't seem at all curious!"

"I'm very curious."

"Well, I'm not, of course!"

"I'm glad to hear it."

He made, as it were, a sort of sketch of a move to release the small hand at this point. However, nothing seemed to come of it.

"Are you?... Why?"

"Oh, because--it's rather sad for an old bystander like me to see all the nice young people going off two by two, for happiness and the great adventure."

To that, the girl made no reply. She merely gave a little laugh, and withdrew her hand. The house seemed very still. And Charles was at once aware that he had been found somehow deficient at the simple game of parlor conversation. In a scarcely definable way, he felt himself rebuked for timidity, wariness.

Nevertheless, in her simple, natural way, the girl made known that the ring was properly the possession of a man in Mitch.e.l.lton--Charles recalled Mr. Jenney--and was now worn only by courtesy, reminiscently, as it were, with no obligations attached.

"You see, his brothers all went off, like all the other men, and his sister married and went away, and so he said he would stay in Mitch.e.l.lton with his mother. And it's truly the most hopeless place! He doesn't seem to have any ambition at all--it provoked me so! I think all men ought to have ambition, don't you?"

"I do, indeed. And he owns that pretty ring, you say?"

"Yes. You see," she said, laughing and coloring, "when I felt I must break it off,--well, he wouldn't let it stay off exactly! I--I'm telling you all my secrets! He said he'd still consider himself--oh--you know!"

"Naturally. He had enough ambition for that."

And, as if to show Miss Angela that, in point of fact, none knew better than he how to talk to a girl on a sofa, Charles carelessly took up that betrothal hand again, saying: "So he made you keep the ring all the same?"

"The day we left Mitch.e.l.lton. And I said I'd wear it--oh, just till I met somebody I liked better! It was really more of a joke!..."

"Ah! And you haven't met such a person yet, I gather?"

"Oh--I'm not to send it back till I know--"

"How long," said the young authority, at once completely conscious of the supreme inanity of the proceedings, and finding them enjoyable enough, "how long do you allow yourself to find out?"

"That isn't easy to tell.... Do you know you're the strangest man!"

"Am I? How do I seem so strange to you?"

The little hand was warm, not unpleasant to retain. The eyes, gazing up at him, were liquid and bright; they were woman's eyes. "Consider me,"

they seemed to say. "Am I not sweet, desirable? Am I not worthy to be held dear? Was I not made to delight? See, I am Woman, beside you...."

"Oh," said the soft voice, "the way you do. Cousin Mary says you're the new sort of man, that isn't interested in girls at all. You're too clever to care anything about them. Are you?"