Mrs. Lander went to a hotel in New York where she had been in the habit
of staying with her husband, on their way South or North. The clerk knew
her, and shook hands with her across the register, and said she could
have her old rooms if she wanted them; the bell-boy who took up their
hand-baggage recalled himself to her; the elevator-boy welcomed her with
a smile of remembrance.
Since she was already up, from coming off the sleeping-car, she had no
excuse for not going to breakfast like other people; and she went with
Clementina to the dining-room, where the head-waiter, who found them
places, spoke with an outlandish accent, and the waiter who served them
had a parlance that seemed superficially English, but was inwardly
something else; there was even a touch in the cooking of the familiar
dishes, that needed translation for the girl's inexperienced palate. She
was finding a refuge in the strangeness of everything, when she was
startled by the sound of a familiar voice calling, "Clementina Claxon!
Well, I was sure all along it was you, and I determined I wouldn't stand
it another minute. Why, child, how you have changed! Why, I declare you
are quite a woman! When did you come? How pretty you are!" Mrs. Milray took
Clementina in her arms and kissed her in proof of her admiration before
the whole breakfast room. She was very nice to Mrs. Lander, too, who,
when Clementina introduced them, made haste to say that Clementina was
there on a visit with her. Mrs. Milray answered that she envied her such
a visitor as Miss Claxon, and protested that she should steal her away
for a visit to herself, if Mr. Milray was not so much in love with her
that it made her jealous. "Mr. Milray has to have his breakfast in his
room," she explained to Clementina. "He's not been so well, since he lost
his mother. Yes," she said, with decorous solemnity, "I'm still in
mourning for her," and Clementina saw that she was in a tempered black.
"She died last year, and now I'm taking Mr. Milray abroad to see if it
won't cheer him up a little. Are you going South for the winter?" she
inquired, politely, of Mrs. Lander. "I wish I was going," she said, when
Mrs. Lander guessed they should go, later on. "Well, you must come in and
see me all you can, Clementina; and I shall have the pleasure of calling
upon you," she added to Mrs. Lander with state that was lost in the
soubrette-like volatility of her flight from them the next moment.
"Goodness, I forgot all about Mr. Milray's breakfast!" She ran back to
the table she had left on the other side of the room.
"Who is that, Clementina?" asked Mrs. Lander, on their way to their
rooms. Clementina explained as well as she could, and Mrs. Lander summed
up her feeling in the verdict, "Well, she's a lady, if ever I saw a lady;
and you don't see many of 'em, nowadays."
The girl remembered how Mrs. Milray had once before seemed very fond of
her, and had afterwards forgotten the pretty promises and professions she
had made her. But she went with Mrs. Lander to see her, and she saw Mr.
Milray, too, for a little while. He seemed glad of their meeting, but
still depressed by the bereavement which Mrs. Milray supported almost
with gayety. When he left them she explained that he was a good deal away
from her, with his family, as she approved of his being, though she had
apparently no wish to join him in all the steps of the reconciliation
which the mother's death had brought about among them. Sometimes his
sisters came to the hotel to see her, but she amused herself perfectly
without them, and she gave much more of her leisure to Clementina and
Mrs. Lander.
She soon knew the whole history of the relation between them, and the
first time that Clementina found her alone with Mrs. Lander she could
have divined that Mrs. Lander had been telling her of the Fane affair,
even if Mrs. Milray had not at once called out to her, "I know all about
it; and I'll tell you what, Clementina, I'm going to take you over with
me and marry you to an English Duke. Mrs. Lander and I have been planning
it all out, and I'm going to send down to the steamer office, and engage
your passage. It's all settled!"
When she was gone, Mrs. Lander asked, "What do you s'pose your folks
would say to your goin' to Europe, anyway, Clementina?" as if the matter
had been already debated between them.
Clementina hesitated. "I should want to be su'a, Mrs. Milray really wanted
me to go ova with her."
"Why, didn't you hear her say so?" demanded Mrs. Lander.
"Yes," sighed Clementina. "Mrs. Lander, I think Mrs. Milray means what
she says, at the time, but she is one that seems to forget."
"She thinks the wo'ld of you," Mrs. Lander urged.
"She was very nice to me that summer at Middlemount. I guess maybe she
would like to have us go with her," the girl relented.
"I guess we'll wait and see," said Mrs. Lander. "I shouldn't want she
should change her mind when it was too late, as you say." They were both
silent for a time, and then Mrs. Lander resumed, "But I presume she
ha'n't got the only steams that's crossin'. What should you say about
goin' over on some otha steams? I been South a good many wintas, and I
should feel kind of lonesome goin' round to the places where I been with
Mr. Landa. I felt it since I been here in this hotel, some, and I can't
seem to want to go ova the same ground again, well, not right away."