“Roger, aren’t you coming in?”
“Sorry, but I can’t. I’m going out to dinner and I have to go home and
change.”
I was disappointed, but I wouldn’t have shown it for the world. I
couldn’t help thinking it was rather stupid of him not to have made a
move to get away sooner, to have a moment’s talk in my parlor by my
lamplight.
“From what you told me of her I thought she was rather high-pitched and
western.”
“I _never_ said that.”
“Maybe you didn’t, but somehow I got the impression. She’s anything but
that--delicate, fine.”
“Um,” I responded. These positive opinions on a person I knew so much
better than he did rasped me a little.
Roger shifted his hat to his left hand and moved to the stair-head.
“There’s something very unusual about her, a sort of fragile simplicity
like a dogrose. Good-by, Evie. Good night.”
I went into my room. It was cold and the chill of it struck
uncomfortably on me. I had a queer feeling of being suddenly
flat--spiritually--as a flourishing lawn might feel when a new roller
goes over it. It improves the looks of the lawn. That it didn’t
have the same effect on me I noticed when I caught myself in the
chimneypiece glass. What a dim little colorless dib of a woman I was!
And how particularly dim and colorless a dib I must look beside Lizzie.
I got my supper, feeling aggrieved. I had never before accused fate
of being unfair when it forgot to make me pretty. But now I felt
hurt, meanly discriminated against. It wasn’t just to give one woman
shining soulful eyes, set deep under classic brows, and another small
gray-green ones that said nothing and grew red in a high wind. It
wasn’t a square deal.
Yesterday afternoon Betty turned up and found the invalid sitting in
my steamer chair looking at the juniper bush. Betty had never spoken
to her before and they talked amicably, Mrs. Ferguson visibly thawing.
I left them, for I want Betty to know her and help her of her own free
will, want to eliminate myself as the middleman.
I was in the kitchenette, getting tea again, when Betty came to the
door and hissed her impressions in a stage whisper.
“Why didn’t you tell me she was so charming?”
Business with the kettle.
“She’s one of the sweetest creatures I ever met.”
Business with the hot water.
“I don’t know why I ever thought she looked theatrical. She must have
had on somebody else’s clothes. She’s a Madonna--those eyes and that
sad far-away look.”
Business with the toast.
Betty was so interested that she got into the kitchenette with me. The
congestion was extreme, especially as she takes up so much room and is
so hard. You can’t squeeze by her or flatten her against walls--you
might as well try to flatten a Corinthian column. I had to feel round
her for cups and plates, engirdle her glistening and prosperous bulk
and grope about on the shelves behind her.
“It’s absurd of her fooling about with this music. She ought to marry.
Has she any serious admirer?”
“Wouldn’t any woman who looked like that have serious admirers? Betty,
I can’t find the cups. Would you mind moving an inch or two?”
“I wouldn’t mind at all if there was an inch or two to move in to. When
you have a kitchen like this you’re evidently expected to hire your
maid by measure. Who’s her admirer?”
“Oh, every man in the house.”
“Are any of them possible?”
I pried her back from the stove and inserted myself between her and it,
feeling like a flower being pressed in the leaves of a book.
“No, not very possible.”
“I’ll have to see what I can do.”
As I poured the water on the tea I couldn’t help saying over my
shoulder:
“There’s Mr. Albertson. He’s still unclaimed in the ‘Found’ Department.”
Mr. Albertson hadn’t loved me at first sight and Betty feels rather
sore about it. She drew a deep breath, thereby crushing me against the
front of the stove.
“No,” she said consideringly. “He won’t do. He’s too old and too
matter-of-fact. Besides, I want him for one of the Geary girls, my
second cousins, who live up in the Bronx and make shoe bags. I’m not
sure which he’ll like best, so to-morrow night I’m having them both to
dine with him.”
Then we had tea and Betty’s good impression increased. She went away
whispering to me on the stairs that she was quite ready to tide Miss
Harris over her difficulties and help her when she had decided what she
wanted to do.