It was long before she slept but she rose obedient to the summons of
the alarm clock and assisted as usual in the preparation of breakfast.
At the table her silence and preoccupation caused her mother to
scrutinize her closely.
“You don’t seem quite like yourself, Grace. Don’t you feel well?”
“Oh, there’s nothing at all the matter. I had a hard day at the store
yesterday.”
“Maybe you ate something for supper that didn’t agree with you.”
Grace read into this suggestion a hint that her mother and sister were
not without their curiosity as to where she had dined and the manner
in which she had spent the remainder of the evening. They had been
accepting so meekly her silence as to her evenings away from home that
it occurred to Grace that it would serve to allay suspicion if she told
occasionally just what she had been doing.
“I had dinner at the Sycamore with an acquaintance--a man from out of
town--and we went to the concert. The music was perfectly wonderful.
And then we walked home. Nothing terribly exciting in that!”
“I thought I heard voices at the door just before you came in,” said
Mrs. Durland with an effort at indifference that was only partly
successful.
“Very likely you did, mamma. Mr. Trenton and I walked home; it seemed
a pity to ride when the night was so fine and there was all that music
still ringing in our ears.”
She was pleased with her own audacity and smiled as she saw Ethel and
her mother exchange glances. But having ventured so far it would be
necessary now to explain how she had met Trenton and she was prepared
with a small lie with which to fortify the truth when she saw that
something more was expected.
“Mr. Trenton, did you say, Grace?” inquired Mrs. Durland as though not
sure she had heard aright.
“Yes, mother; Mr. Ward Trenton, of Pittsburgh. I knew his niece very
well at the University, and as he comes here now and then Mabel wrote
and asked him to look me up. He’s ever so nice. He’s been everywhere
and talks wonderfully. He’s a mechanical engineer and rated very high,
isn’t he, daddy?”
Trenton’s name had impinged upon Durland’s consciousness and he put
down the morning newspaper to which he had been referring from time to
time during the consumption of his breakfast.
“Ward Trenton? Yes, he’s one of the ablest engineers in the country.
Did you say he’d been in town, Grace?”
“Yes, he comes here now and then. I had dinner with him last night at
the Sycamore and we went to the concert. I meant to tell you about him.
He knows of you; he says he’s always stumbling into you in the patent
office records.”
“Did Trenton say that?” asked Durland, greatly pleased.
“Yes; he spoke of you in the kindest way, father.”
“You don’t say! I wouldn’t have thought he’d ever heard of me. He’s
in touch with all the big industrial concerns of the country,” said
Durland. “I guess there is hardly a man whose word is worth more than
Trenton’s. I read just the other day, in one of the trade journals, an
address he made somewhere on shop efficiency. His opinions are quoted
a good deal; he knows what he’s talking about.”
Her father’s manifestation of interest in a man so eminent in his own
field did not prevent Ethel from taking advantage of Grace’s unexpected
frankness to ask:
“Was it Mr. Trenton you were with at the theatre a few nights ago?
One of the girls in the office said she saw you there with a very
distinguished looking man.”
“The very same!” Grace replied promptly. “You know Mr. Trenton is awful
keen about Mabel, so when she wrote him that I was at Shipley’s he came
in to see me.”
Having gone so far with the imaginary niece she thought it best to
endow her with a full name.
“Mabel Conwell is awfully nice, though you wouldn’t exactly call her
pretty.”
“Does she live here?” asked Mrs. Durland.
“Oh, no! Her home’s in Jeffersonville or New Albany, I forget which.
It’s one of those Ohio river towns.”
“It was certainly kind of her to have Mr. Trenton look you up,” said
Mrs. Durland. “But I wish you’d asked him to the house. It doesn’t seem
just right for you to be going out with a man your family doesn’t know.
I’m not saying, dear, that there’s any impropriety; only I think it
would give him a better impression of all of us if we met him.”
“Oh, I meant to bring him up but he’s so terribly busy. He works
everywhere he goes right up to the last minute. And it was much simpler
to meet him at the Sycamore.”
“He’s married, is he not?” asked Ethel.
“Oh, yes!” said Grace, heartily regretting now that she had opened the
way for this question. “His wife is Mary Graham Trenton who write and
lectures.”
“That woman,” exclaimed Mrs. Durland, plainly horrified. “She is one
of the most dangerous of all the foes of decency in this country!
Last spring we had a discussion of her ideas in the West End Club. I
hadn’t known how utterly without shame a woman could be till one of our
members wrote a paper about her.”
“I’ve heard that she’s very wealthy,” interposed Ethel in a tone which
suggested that, no matter how utterly destructive of public morals Mrs.
Trenton’s ideas might be, as a rich woman she was not wholly beyond the
pale. “It’s all the more remarkable that she’s opposed to marriage and
nearly everything else, or pretends to be, when she belongs to one of
the oldest American families and inherited her wealth.”
“I don’t know that Mr. Trenton accepts her ideas,” said Grace. “He
hasn’t discussed them with me. He seemed rather amused when I told him
I’d read her ‘Clues to a New Social Order’.”
“You haven’t read that awful thing?” cried Mrs. Durland.
“Why, certainly, mother; I read it last winter. It’s not so awfully
shocking; I suppose there are a good many people who believe as Mrs.
Trenton does.”
“How can you speak so, Grace! What would become of the home and the
family if such ideas prevailed? That woman’s positively opposed to
marriage.”
“Oh, I don’t believe it’s as bad as that! I think it’s more her idea
that where marriages are unhappy it’s cruel to make people live
together. But, you needn’t be afraid that Mr. Trenton’s trying to
convert me to his wife’s notions. I don’t believe he is terribly
tickled to have her gallivanting over the country lecturing.”
“You can’t be too careful, you know, Grace, about letting a married man
pay you attentions. People are bound to talk. And Mrs. Trenton, being
known for her loose ideas on marriage, naturally causes people to look
twice at her husband.”
“And at any woman her husband pays attention to,” Ethel added.
“Of course I’m careful what I do,” replied Grace. “Mr. Trenton is a
perfect gentleman in every way and just as kind and considerate as
can be. He gave me two of the pleasantest evenings I ever spent. You
certainly can’t object to my knowing a man like that.”
“No, dear,” replied Mrs. Durland, “except that it seems strange for a
daughter of mine to be meeting a married man and having dinner with him
and going to the theatre when I don’t know him at all.”
Durland had lingered, pretending to be looking for something in the
paper but really prepared to support Grace in the event that his wife
and Ethel showed a disposition to carry their criticisms further.
“I suppose we have to put up with such things,” said Ethel, “but that
doesn’t make them right. I hope, Grace, you won’t let your independence
carry you _too_ far.”
“Well, Mr. Trenton has passed on and I don’t know when he’ll turn up
here again, so you needn’t worry.”
“It’s fine you can know a man like Trenton,” Durland ventured from the
hall door.
“Here’s an idea!” cried Grace, springing after him to hold his
overcoat, “the next time Mr. Trenton comes to town I’ll try to have you
meet him.”
“I think some of us ought to meet him,” said Mrs. Durland, who had
begun to clear the table.
“By all means,” Ethel affirmed. “I think the family dignity calls for
at least that!”
“Yes, we must preserve the family dignity at any hazard,” Grace
retorted.
Having buttoned her father into his coat she snatched his hat and
planted it at a rakish angle on his head. He submitted good-naturedly,
pleased as he always was by her attentions.
“You bring Trenton down sometime, Grace. I’ve some old junk I’d be glad
to show him,” he said, glancing furtively at his wife.
“Grand! Between us we ought to be able to put something over on him.”
She flung her arm across his shoulder and walked with him to the front
door.
No highly developed talent for mind reading was necessary to an
understanding of the mental operations of Mrs. Durland and Ethel in
matters pertaining to the father and younger daughter. When Grace
entered the kitchen she knew that she had interrupted a conference
bearing upon her acquaintance with Trenton. Her mother and Ethel would
study the matter in all its aspects. She derived a cynical satisfaction
from the knowledge that her apparent frankness was probably causing
them more anxiety than an evasion or a downright lie.