It was one of those slack hours in the domestic day when even the most
tireless hands can find no task to do. Miss Angela Flower sat by the
single window of her bedroom, the window that gave, over two sets of
back-yards, a sectional view of Washington Street. On the ledge beside
her stood the opera-glasses, employed sometimes for long-distance
vision. They were old glasses, somewhat shabby now, and the case to them
was long since lost.
To be transplanted is hard on the young, as Charles Garrott had once
said, and to be a normal girl is to desire that pleasant happenings
shall occur. This was Angela's favorite seat in the house, because it
brought her nearest to the happenings of the Street of the Blessed:
nearest to them, while she was yet farthest away. Often in the early
weeks she had, indeed, felt quite forlorn as she sat here; she was a
stranger and friendless, of a poor family and with small opportunity.
Since the Redmantle Club meeting, however, the view from the window had
become more personally interesting, more touched with the sense of
participation. Here Angela had seen Mr. Garrott on his way to lunch;
here she had twice glimpsed Mr. Manford, striding along from his office
just at dark; here she had even made out Mr. Tilletts, whom once she had
mistaken for somebody's uncle, whirling by in a great automobile.
And this afternoon, in her leisure hour, Angela did not feel forlorn or
out of things at all, nor did she so much as glance out of the window,
with a naked eye. She had sheets of note-paper upon a magazine in her
lap, and on one of the sheets she was writing blithely:--
Miss Angela Flower entertained at bridge Thursday evening.
As the Redmantle Club had been her first party in the city, so the young
girl, with real pleasure, now planned for a second, this one to be her
very own. It had occurred to her, more for fun than anything else, to
write out a little notice of her party for the social columns of the
"Post." Not being as experienced at writing as Mr. Garrott, she took
some time to get the wording of the notice just to her liking; but it
was a very happy sort of time.
That finished, Angela turned again to the more practical aspects of the
party. Who were to be the guests at it, in fine? As yet she had only
herself and Mr. Garrott.
Now, calling out suddenly to her mother in the front room, she learned
to her surprise that it was almost half-past four o'clock; whereon she
sprang up at once, and began to dress quickly for the street. About
quarter of five, after talking a little with her mother in the front
room, Angela set out to call on her cousin, Mary Wing.
Now Angela knew that something rather unpleasant was going on in
connection with her Cousin Mary at this time. Being a well-brought-up
young girl, she was, of course, not allowed to hear bold, improper talk,
but still she knew that there was _something_. Mrs. Flower, though very
fond of Mrs. Wing, who was her double first-cousin, had, indeed, felt
obliged to forbid Angela to cultivate any undue intimacy with Mary;
which Angela, considering the differences between the two girls, was
hardly likely to do in any case. Nevertheless, relations were still
pleasant, and Mrs. Flower had agreed that, under the circumstances,
Cousin Mary and Mr. Manford should be invited to the bridge-party. It
was the cousinly thing to do, and besides, as Mrs. Flower had pointed
out, she could not very well invite Mr. Manford without inviting Cousin
Mary, too.
The Wings lived in a pleasant house on Olive Street, four doors from
Washington and overlooking the Green Park. The house was bigger than it
looked, because of a two-story extension that ran out behind, converting
an ordinary dwelling into two quite nice flats. Building that extension
was the very first thing that Mary had done when she took charge of the
family. In the upper flat dwelt Mr. and Mrs. Crowther, who could
sometimes be heard recriminating each other in embittered tones. In the
lower flat Mrs. and Miss Wing were very comfortable, with four rooms,
bath, kitchenette, tiny back yard and patent clothes-dryer. The fourth
room, which had been Donald Manford's till he outgrew apron-strings, was
a convertible affair, now a dining-room, now a bedroom, according as the
Wings dined at home, on the one hand, or were receiving a visit from
Fanny Warder--Mary's younger but married sister--on the other. At
present the latter condition prevailed, and Fanny's two babies possessed
the room, the flat, and the world besides.
Angela entered upon three generations, scattered widely over the
sitting-room floor. Fanny was out, but her place in the line was ably
taken by Aunt Mary, whose modernity did not stick out so much in these
purely domestic moments. Angela, watching her cousin explain to Paulie
Warder why the best little boys never, _never_ ate green paint, thought
with a kind of surprise: "She really looks very nice." She was duly
presented to Paulie and Neddy-Weddy, who were coaxed to show off their
store of tricks for the Pretty Lady, and she did her best to shower
those eulogies which the relatives in the case invariably expect. But
Neddy-Weddy, for his part, appeared altogether too sleepy to care what
strangers might think of him, and it may be that to a coolly impartial
eye Paulie appeared more soiled than cute at this particular moment.
Angela really wasn't sorry when the babies' grandmother gathered them
and their belongings to her bosom and withdrew to an inner chamber.
But when she broached the matter of the bridge-party on Thursday, Cousin
Mary said at once:--
"My dear, it's very sweet of you, but I couldn't--possibly. I can't
dream of taking an evening off--oh, this side of Christmas!"
Cousin Mary had a great stack of examination papers to mark, it seemed;
she pointed to them on her open desk in the corner. She also had ten
thousand leaflets to distribute for that Education League of hers; they
lay in bales in another corner, behind the sofa. Further, she had three
articles to write at once for the League's magazine: for it had a
special magazine all its own, it seemed. As for Donald Manford, she said
she could not speak. But Cousin Mary did mention, in a discouraging way,
that Donald also was doing a good deal of rush-work just now, clearing
his desk for his trip to Wyoming.
"And besides, my dear," she concluded, "to the best of my knowledge,
Donald can't play bridge at all."
"I could teach him, Cousin Mary--it's awfully easy! I remember, I taught
a man in Mitchellton to play once, in twenty minutes! Besides--why, of
course, it wouldn't make any difference!"
Mary Wing, no doubt, desired to play fair. She could not say now, as of
old, that Donald never went out; for she knew that Donald was going out
that very evening, escorting Miss Helen Carson to the theater, in short.
Mary knew this, because she had arranged the matter herself, and
personally bought the tickets for Donald's account.
So she said: "You must ask him, Angela--do! Use my telephone there, why
don't you, and catch him now before he leaves the office?"
But no, that was just what Angela felt she could not do, for, while she
had enjoyed two short walks with Mr. Manford, the truth was that he had
never called. Mr. Garrott, on the other hand, besides everything else,
had called, the day she lent him the book.
"I thought _you_ might ask him, Cousin Mary. I thought you might just
bring him with you, informally. It's going to be very informal," said
Angela.
"But as I can't go myself, Angela, you see ..."
Angela concealed her disappointment as best she could. She was a
sweet-natured girl; moreover, Cousin Mary, after all, was the only
person who had tried to do anything for her. Nevertheless, her
disappointment was keen, and touched with a little irritation at Cousin
Mary's attitude. Her cousin, Mr. Garrott, Mr. Manford, and herself--they
made a natural table of bridge, a little coterie of friends and
relatives who instinctively met together now and then for congenial
diversion. It did seem rather hard that Cousin Mary should spoil it all,
with this firm stand against all social enjoyment. Only she and Mr.
Garrott, it seemed, cared for a little wholesome pleasure.
And undoubtedly this attitude of Cousin Mary's did reduce the
bridge-party to a rather precarious position. Of course Jennie Finchman
could be secured for the other girl, or even Fanny Warder; but as for
the man to fill Mr. Manford's place, that was a more difficult matter.
"I'm awfully sorry _you_ can't come, Cousin Mary," she was saying in her
soft voice. "Mr. Garrott'll be _so_ disappointed. He admires you so
much--indeed, he does! He told me so only yesterday."
"Oh!" said Mary Wing; and added, as if it were a part of the same
sentence--"yesterday! You're seeing a good deal of him now?"
"Oh, yes! We have a walk or something nearly every day."
"He's quite attractive, don't you think?"
The girl answered without self-consciousness: "Oh, I do--he's the nicest
thing! And so cunning-looking, too!--isn't he?"
"I've always been intrigued, I admit," said the school-teacher, "by the
three brown freckles on his nose."
She was looking with admiration at her cousin's fresh youthfulness, so
unmarked by experience, so innocent of knowledge of fierce conflicting
ideas. And Mary looked with a kind of compunction, too. She had honestly
wished and tried to "do something" for Angela; but, alas, she herself
had been so long and completely out of things that few connections
remained to her now, such as would assist to launch a somewhat belated
début. She had her hands full enough trying to do something of that sort
with Donald, an eligible man. Still--
"Oh, Angela, here's a thought!" she said, suddenly. "If you'll only make
a decently long visit, you'll be almost certain to see Donald here! He
drops in nearly every afternoon to see the babies, you know--"
"Oh!--does he?"
"You never imagined such a goose as he is over them. And then you could
ask him to the party, in--in a casual way."
Angela cheered up at once. Of course, if she could meet and ask Mr.
Manford in a casual way, it would be different. And it must be admitted
that Mr. Tilletts, who had hovered in the background of her mind, did
seem a rather remote possibility.
So the talk passed easily from the bridge-party to Fanny Warder, and
other lesser matters.
Mary Wing moved about as she talked. She was picking up fire-engines and
pieces of cake, overlooked by the grandmother in the suddenness of
departure. Angela's eyes followed her over the room, and she felt a
touch of envy. It was really a pretty room, much prettier than anything
in the Flowers' little house, large, light, attractively furnished, most
comfortable and livable. But, of course, it was a simple matter to have
pretty things if you had the money to buy them; which, in brief, was
just what the Flowers didn't have. It suddenly came over Angela that her
advanced cousin was, comparatively speaking, a _rich_ woman.
She said something of the sort aloud presently. Mary Wing replied that
she worked pretty hard for all she had.
"Our furniture is so old and awful I can't do a thing with it,"
continued Angela. "I rub and scrub and polish, but it just seems to get
worse. And then the parlor is that long, narrow shape, like a
sleeping-car, and needs papering so dreadfully! You know, Cousin Mary,"
said the girl, with a rueful laugh, "we were never so poor in all our
lives! You don't know how hard it is to accomplish _anything_, when you
literally haven't a cent to spend."
Cousin Mary, who could be very nice when she wanted to, expressed
herself very sympathetically. "And I do know something about it, my
dear, you see, for I've been that way myself."
"If father'd only get some patients!" said Angela. "But he's so funny,
he just seems to think a family gets along somehow, and never even put
up his sign till I begged him to! And, of course, Wallie doesn't
contribute anything; he just puts away everything he makes for his
education--"
"It _is_ hard on you, poor dear--"
"He has to, of course. But I _have_ wished we had Tommy back, these
weeks since we've been here! He was the sweetest, most generous thing,
till he married...."
But soon Cousin Mary gave the conversation a characteristic twist, with
the very suggestion that Mr. Garrott had once promised to make to
Angela, and then permanently backed down.
"Angela," she said, suddenly thoughtful, "did you ever think at all of
going to work--regularly, for yourself?"