Their next meeting occurred at the Carmichael house at dinner. Emily,
with the approach of the Easter season, had one day announced her
intention of giving a dinner in Joan's honor, greatly to the younger
girl's pleasure. It meant that she had won not only the friendship of
Emily, but that of her mother as well; a rather more difficult feat.
Major Darcy was equally pleased with this compliment, which he
characteristically accepted for himself.
"It is very gratifying to have old friends take one's child to their
hearts in this fashion--very gratifying! There are no better people in
the State than the Carmichaels, my dear. It is true that I have seen
less of the Judge than I could have wished since my return--we were
school-boys together. But I felt that soon or late there was bound to be
some recognition. A fine fellow, and a most able lawyer! Yes, yes. And
his wife--charming, charming! Though a trifle stiff for my fancy. A
_little_ more suavity of manner. She was a Dillingham, you know. Her
father represented us at one time at the Court of St. James."
"Oh! Is that why she's so airy?" commented Effie May. "Well, I don't
mind airs if people have got a right to 'em, and nobody needs call on me
who don't want to. I'm real glad you're getting in with that crowd,
Joan. They're better than most 'old families'--they're still alive and
kicking and right at the top. And you've done it all by yourself, too!
Parties don't seem to do no good with their kind.... That's what comes
of being born a lady yourself."
Something both wistful and generous in this speech touched the girl.
"I had forgotten Mrs. Carmichael has not called on you, Effie May," she
said quickly. "Of course that makes it impossible for me to accept their
invitation. I'll tell Emily."
And neither the Major's hasty reassurances or her step-mother's
remonstrances sufficed to alter her decision. She declined Emily's
invitation, and told her why.
"You're quite right, and Mother'd be the first person to tell you so,"
said Emily in instant approval. "I'll see what I can do. You know--" she
hesitated--"it isn't that there's any _reason_ for her not to call. Of
course everybody knows who your father is, and he's perfectly
delightful, too! It's just--"
"I understand," said Joan quietly.
Emily put an arm around her. "My dear, I hope you do--This is such a
small puddle that the big frogs in it take themselves rather seriously.
And it's changing lately. It used to be that in the South money or the
lack of it meant almost nothing at all. Now it means a great deal--more,
I fancy, than in places where there's more of it. It doesn't seem to
take even one generation to make a gentleman nowadays--or what passes
for a gentleman. And so the old guard feel that they have to be
especially wary, to make a decided stand, in order to retain their own
identity. They're horribly afraid of being--not exterminated exactly,
but--"
"Mixed?" suggested Joan. "I remember you called me 'mixed' the first
time you deigned to notice me."
"Not the first time--the second," laughed Emily, blushing. "The first
time was on the train, and you had flowers and a box of candy, and I
hadn't.--The second time you were such a haughty little minx, with your
Eastern airs and your lovely clothes, and so utterly unaware of my
provincial existence, that I simply _had_ to snub you somehow!"
"Well!" gasped Joan. "That is exactly the way I felt about you!"
"And there we were bristling our hackles at each other like two strange
puppy dogs, each waiting for the other to wag a tail. Anyway, I wagged
first!" cried Emily, kissing her friend. "And I'm not going to lose you
now, simply because my family hasn't been polite to your family."
"You couldn't!" said Joan rather shyly, kissing her in return....
As a result of this understanding, some days later the cards of both
Judge and Mrs. Jonathan Carmichael appeared on the Darcy hall table
(from which they were not removed until gray with age and exposure); to
be followed by an even more unequivocal bit of pasteboard which informed
Mrs. and Miss Darcy that Mrs. Carmichael would be at home on a certain
afternoon in April from four until six.
Effie May's innocent joy in this trophy, and the frequency with which it
figured in subsequent conversations, filled Joan with a combination of
embarrassment and satisfaction. She felt that she had at last done
something to repay, in part, the obligation she owed to her father's
wife....
She was not surprised to find Archibald at Emily's dinner. It was the
first time she had seen him under quite such a strong social light,
however, and she was a little nervous as to what the evening might bring
forth. "The Sign of the Dirty Spoon," did not sound like the most
reliable school of table manners.
He sat opposite her, between Emily and a debutante of the type that
makes conversation an act of supererogation, and she was able without
seeming to do so to keep her protege under a watchful eye.
But to her relief he neither swallowed his spoon nor grasped his fork
with undue firmness, and seemed not at all perturbed by the variety of
the silver implements beside his plate. Joan was quite mystified by his
prowess; until she happened to notice that Emily also had him under a
watchful eye. With each course Emily promptly and ostentatiously
selected the proper implement, and Archie, after one glance out of the
corner of an eye, followed suit. It was perhaps fortunate that Emily was
his leader instead of the more impish Joan, who would have been impelled
by sheer force of circumstance to attempt her fish with her coffee
spoon.
What surprised her even more than Archibald's table manners was his
conversation; a flow, a positive torrent, which poured on in a constant
stream, pausing only for the extreme exigencies of mastication, and not
always then. In the intervals of her own talk, Joan caught occasional
bits of this monologue. During the soup course it apparently concerned
itself with the South American armadillo, habits and habitat. During the
dessert it still appeared to linger about the armadillo.
Now and then Emily cast a puzzled glance across at Joan, and the
debutante on his other side had long since been reduced to "Oh, really?"
and "I can hardly believe that!" But the armadillo went on and on.
Joan had not suspected him of a concealed passion for natural history.
She could hardly wait for dinner to be over to investigate this new
development. But she had to call him to her side in so many words before
he ventured to join her. His eyes had been upon her most of the evening,
removing themselves hastily whenever they caught hers; but he did not
wish to intrude. It was quite sufficient for him to be in the same room
with her.
She began at once, "Why and whence the armadillo, Archie? You sounded
like a University Extension lecture!"
"Did I?" he grinned. "Was it all right? There were some things I forgot
to tell 'em. About the--"
"Never mind!" said Joan hastily. "What I want to know is how you came by
the armadillo, anyway?"
"I'm taking a correspondence course," he confessed.
"In--in armadillos?"
"No, in conversation," he said seriously. "Subjects of General
Discussion Suitable for Social Gatherings. I thought, seeing as I'm
going out in society so much these days, I ought to work up a different
line of talk than a fellow needs in business. The sort of things _you_
like, you know--not learned, exactly, but sort of high-brow.--Books and
all.--They send us out a subject once a week. 'All about the North Pole'
it was once. 'The Infant in Portraiture,' another time. Last week it was
'The Armadillo and Its Ways.' Great scheme, ain't it?"
"Stupendous!" murmured Joan. "But, Archie, suppose you meet a
fellow-student at some--er, social gathering who happens to be pursuing
the same line of cultivation? Mightn't that be rather embarrassing?"
"Give me away, you mean? What's the dif? I would give him away, too, and
we'd have something to talk about! Anyway, to know all about something's
a mighty fine idea, even if you don't get a chance to tell folks."
Joan did not smile. She realized that here, manifesting itself no matter
how uncouthly, was the true spirit of research, a thing which she
respected above all other impulses of the human brain.
She said softly, "Keep on with your correspondence course by all
means!--only, Archie, don't talk about it to other people, will you?
They might not understand."
He gave her a quick little grin of comprehension. "Not on your life! It
don't pay to wise people up to what a boob you are.--Except you. I guess
you know, anyway!"