Shouting, Mrs. Silver jostled by him, and, though she disappeared into
the house, a trail of calamitous uproar marked her passage to the
kitchen.
"What thing has happened?" Mr. Atwater demanded. "Is she----?"
His daughter interrupted him.
"_Oh_!" was all she said, and sped by him like a bit of blown
thistledown, into the house. He grasped at her as she passed him; then
suddenly he made other gestures, and, like Kitty Silver, used Jacobean
phrases. But now there were no auditors, for Noble Dill and Newland
Sanders, after thoughtlessly following a mutual and natural impulse to
step over and examine the fallen basket, had both gone out to the
street, where they lingered a while, then decided to go home.
... Later, that evening, Florence and Herbert remembered the c'lection;
so they came for it, a mistake. Discovering the fragments upon the
veranda, they made the much more important mistake of entering the house
to demand an explanation, which they received immediately. It was
delivered with so much vigour, indeed, that Florence was surprised and
hurt. And yet, the most important of her dreamy wishes of the afternoon
had been fulfilled: the c'lection had been useful to Noble Dill, for Mr.
Atwater had smelled the smell of an Orduma cigarette and was just on the
point of coming out to say some harsh things, when the c'lection
interfered. And as Florence was really responsible for its having been
in a position to interfere, so to say, she had actually in a manner
protected her protégé and also shown some of that power of which she had
boasted when she told him that sometimes she made members of her family
"step around pretty lively."
Another of her wishes appeared to be on the way to fulfilment, too. She
had hoped that something memorable might be done with the c'lection, and
the interview with her grandfather, her Aunt Julia, and Kitty Silver
seemed to leave this beyond doubt.