CHAPTER VI.

The brightness of the room, the effect produced by the brilliant color of the decorations, and the atmosphere of livableness and charm did not dazzle the guest who entered--because she simply could not see! Her excitement was such that it caused a sort of blindness to fall on her, although she had never thought herself bashful or shy.

A lady, younger than herself, rose and welcomed her in a soft, quick voice, with a difference so marked in speech to any Mrs. Warrener had ever heard that she thought it was a foreign accent.

“How do you do? This is very good of you; won’t you sit here? We feel very much like strangers, coming back to Slocum after so many years. Fanny, darling, take your spools and wool and go to nurse. There--first say: ‘How do you do?’ to Mrs. Warrener.”

Gertrude had a vision of a small creature with a head like a chrysanthemum flower and the wide, round eyes of a child. The little hand that met her glove with frank politeness gave her a pretty greeting. Mrs. Warrener was obliged to break the hard tension of nervous fright that clutched her throat, and to speak to her hostess, who, in a chair near her, represented a world of civilization and education so unlike her own that a bird of paradise and a barnyard hen might have had more points in common.

She breathed out: “I used to know Mrs. McAllister; she used to go to my husband’s uncle’s church.” There was no elder lady present, and Mrs. Warrener looked for one.

“Oh, yes,” her hostess answered. “I am very sorry my mother is not here. She is at Cannes; she never comes north before spring. It is nearly twelve years since she’s been in America.”

“Yes,” Mrs. Warrener was forced to speak. “I guess it was just at the time of my wedding. That was eight years ago. I remember they said she was going to Europe then. She came to my wedding; she was at the church.”

Mrs. Bellamy, who keenly, although with perfect politeness, was studying the village lady before her, wondered very much for what reason her mother had attended the Warrener wedding.

“Slocum must seem small after Rome,” Mrs. Warrener ventured into the conversation with more ease.

Her hostess laughed. “Slocum! Why, I haven’t seen it yet, do you know! I came at night--we drove up from the train in a storm. But”--she raised her eyes to the other part of the room--“my brother can tell you how it seems; _he_ has lots of ideas about it! My brother, Mr. McAllister--Mrs. Warrener.”

Paul McAllister had returned, to his sister’s great surprise.

“Mrs. Warrener thinks Slocum must seem ‘small’ after Rome.” She did not italicize the repetition which she carefully made, sure that it would appeal to her brother’s humor as it was.

* * * * *

Mrs. Warrener gracefully, if unnecessarily, rose to the presentation, and found her hand in that of the gentleman of the long black overcoat, who bowed, meeting her eyes with a smile very like one of recognition and friendliness.

“Slocum is not small to me. I was born and brought up here. The place one comes from always seems the most important in the world. Of course it may strike me as small before I get through with it, but I have not found it so yet.”

Entirely unable to cope with the conversation, ordinary as it was, carried on by the quick, soft voices in enunciation so new to her that the language seemed scarcely English--Mrs. Warrener looked at the speaker with less embarrassment because he put her at her ease. Dark, brilliant and distinguished, he did not, nevertheless, awe her as did Mrs. Bellamy’s beauty and pose. McAllister took a chair and sat down directly in front of the guest.

“I have seen Mrs. Warrener already--at golf. You were there yesterday? Didn’t you give me my ball?”

“Yes, I just walked up for a little exercise. It’s nice playing there in the afternoon now, since the snow has gone.”

“I don’t play, myself,” McAllister said, “but, as you say, it’s a nice walk.”

Mrs. Bellamy, after a word or two, leaned back in her chair with relief, and left to her brother the amenities, watching him and the guest.

After Mrs. Warrener had gone--and McAllister had seen her to the door and returned with his indolent step--as he stopped to light a fresh cigarette, his sister said:

“Well, had you any recollection about a village beauty such as your boyhood and sarsaparilla memories? And did Mrs. Warrener recall it--and is the result the same?”

McAllister turned his handsome, careless face to his sister.

“You think her a stupid little provincial, don’t you, Agnes?”

“I? Why, I asked you your opinion.”

“You don’t deny that you think that.”

“Her boots are frightful, and her hat was appalling.”

“Oh, come,” laughed her brother; “be fair!”

Mrs. McAllister gathered up her work--a piece of tapestry.

“You are unable,” she said, with some asperity, “to see any landscape without a woman in it, even for five days.”

“It’s a great compliment that you pay your sex. Let my weakness pass. Won’t you confess that this little village nobody has more good looks than we have seen in Rome for two winters?”

“Beauty--_Paul!_”

McAllister shrugged: “Decidedly. A face like a Greuze, perfect eyebrows--so perfect as to be almost suspicious; that inimitable droop of the eyes and the corners of the mouth--at once childlike and mature; and her coloring!”

“You are always finding the most impossible women, and telling me how paintable they are. Do you want to paint this little bore?”

“Somebody has painted her, and to perfection,” he said, with authority. “I will show you her likeness in the Louvre when we get back.”

He had thrust his hands in his pockets and begun to stroll up and down the room. As she watched him a shade crossed his sister’s face. The worsted ball Fanny had let fall her mother picked up and turned over in her hands.

“As you sat and talked to the poor little woman I watched you; she was fascinated by you--no, really! Her entire expression altered! She has never seen anyone like you before.” (“That’s what the drug-store man thought,” murmured McAllister.) “And I hope she won’t take to frequenting the Golf Club and other local festive places where she can see you.”

“Thanks, Agnes.”

McAllister laughed, and, taking from her hands the red worsted ball, idly unwound it.

“Don’t be foolish! If we are here for any purpose under heaven, let’s amuse ourselves and some of these people, too! I don’t intend to shut myself up like Noah in the ark, with only the passengers I took on board at Rome. Let’s have Mrs. Warrener to lunch; she’s a nice little creature; she’s immured in this hole, and she’s probably bored to death.”

“If she _is_ immured,” murmured Mrs. Bellamy, “don’t let’s bring her out.”

McAllister had almost unwound the ball as he talked, and what was left of it rolled down under the table.

Here Bellamy came in, and McAllister took his indolent self away. “What have you been doing?” Mr. Bellamy asked his wife. She gathered up the worsted and said, impatiently: “I’ve been talking to my idle and destructive brother.”