"Well, what could you do if it WAS Mr. Corey? You couldn't come to tea,
you say. But HE'LL excuse you. I've told him you had a headache.
Why, of course you can't come! It would be too barefaced. But you
needn't be troubled, Irene; I'll do my best to make the time pass
pleasantly for him." Here the cat gave a low titter, and the mouse
girded itself up with a momentary courage and self-respect.
"I should think you would be ashamed to come here and tease me so."
"I don't see why you shouldn't believe me," argued Penelope. "Why
shouldn't he come down with father, if father asked him? and he'd be
sure to if he thought of it. I don't see any p'ints about that frog
that's any better than any other frog."
The sense of her sister's helplessness was too much for the tease; she
broke down in a fit of smothered laughter, which convinced her victim
that it was nothing but an ill-timed joke.
"Well, Pen, I wouldn't use you so," she whimpered.
Penelope threw herself on the bed beside her.
"Oh, poor Irene! He IS here. It's a solemn fact." And she caressed and
soothed her sister, while she choked with laughter. "You must get up
and come out. I don't know what brought him here, but here he is."
"It's too late now," said Irene desolately. Then she added, with a
wilder despair: "What a fool I was to take that walk!"
"Well," coaxed her sister, "come out and get some tea. The tea will do
you good."
"No, no; I can't come. But send me a cup here."
"Yes, and then perhaps you can see him later in the evening."
"I shall not see him at all."
An hour after Penelope came back to her sister's room and found her
before her glass. "You might as well have kept still, and been well by
morning, 'Rene," she said. "As soon as we were done father said,
'Well, Mr. Corey and I have got to talk over a little matter of
business, and we'll excuse you, ladies.' He looked at mother in a way
that I guess was pretty hard to bear. 'Rene, you ought to have heard
the Colonel swelling at supper. It would have made you feel that all
he said the other day was nothing."
Mrs. Lapham suddenly opened the door.
"Now, see here, Pen," she said, as she closed it behind her, "I've had
just as much as I can stand from your father, and if you don't tell me
this instant what it all means----"
She left the consequences to imagination, and Penelope replied with her
mock soberness--
"Well, the Colonel does seem to be on his high horse, ma'am. But you
mustn't ask me what his business with Mr. Corey is, for I don't know.
All that I know is that I met them at the landing, and that they
conversed all the way down--on literary topics."
"Nonsense! What do you think it is?"
"Well, if you want my candid opinion, I think this talk about business
is nothing but a blind. It seems a pity Irene shouldn't have been up
to receive him," she added.
Irene cast a mute look of imploring at her mother, who was too much
preoccupied to afford her the protection it asked.
"Your father said he wanted to go into the business with him."
Irene's look changed to a stare of astonishment and mystification, but
Penelope preserved her imperturbability.
"Well, it's a lucrative business, I believe."
"Well, I don't believe a word of it!" cried Mrs. Lapham. "And so I
told your father."
"Did it seem to convince him?" inquired Penelope.
Her mother did not reply. "I know one thing," she said. "He's got to
tell me every word, or there'll be no sleep for him THIS night."
"Well, ma'am," said Penelope, breaking down in one of her queer laughs,
"I shouldn't be a bit surprised if you were right."
"Go on and dress, Irene," ordered her mother, "and then you and Pen
come out into the parlour. They can have just two hours for business,
and then we must all be there to receive him. You haven't got headache
enough to hurt you."
"Oh, it's all gone now," said the girl.
At the end of the limit she had given the Colonel, Mrs. Lapham looked
into the dining-room, which she found blue with his smoke.
"I think you gentlemen will find the parlour pleasanter now, and we can
give it up to you."
"Oh no, you needn't," said her husband. "We've got about through."
Corey was already standing, and Lapham rose too. "I guess we can join
the ladies now. We can leave that little point till to-morrow."
Both of the young ladies were in the parlour when Corey entered with
their father, and both were frankly indifferent to the few books and
the many newspapers scattered about on the table where the large lamp
was placed. But after Corey had greeted Irene he glanced at the novel
under his eye, and said, in the dearth that sometimes befalls people at
such times: "I see you're reading Middlemarch. Do you like George
Eliot?"
"Who?" asked the girl.
Penelope interposed. "I don't believe Irene's read it yet. I've just
got it out of the library; I heard so much talk about it. I wish she
would let you find out a little about the people for yourself," she
added. But here her father struck in--
"I can't get the time for books. It's as much as I can do to keep up
with the newspapers; and when night comes, I'm tired, and I'd rather go
out to the theatre, or a lecture, if they've got a good stereopticon to
give you views of the places. But I guess we all like a play better
than 'most anything else. I want something that'll make me laugh. I
don't believe in tragedy. I think there's enough of that in real life
without putting it on the stage. Seen 'Joshua Whitcomb'?"
The whole family joined in the discussion, and it appeared that they
all had their opinions of the plays and actors. Mrs. Lapham brought
the talk back to literature. "I guess Penelope does most of our
reading."
"Now, mother, you're not going to put it all on me!" said the girl, in
comic protest.
Her mother laughed, and then added, with a sigh: "I used to like to get
hold of a good book when I was a girl; but we weren't allowed to read
many novels in those days. My mother called them all LIES. And I
guess she wasn't so very far wrong about some of them."
"They're certainly fictions," said Corey, smiling.
"Well, we do buy a good many books, first and last," said the Colonel,
who probably had in mind the costly volumes which they presented to one
another on birthdays and holidays. "But I get about all the reading I
want in the newspapers. And when the girls want a novel, I tell 'em to
get it out of the library. That's what the library's for. Phew!" he
panted, blowing away the whole unprofitable subject. "How close you
women-folks like to keep a room! You go down to the sea-side or up to
the mountains for a change of air, and then you cork yourselves into a
room so tight you don't have any air at all. Here! You girls get on
your bonnets, and go and show Mr. Corey the view of the hotels from the
rocks."
Corey said that he should be delighted. The girls exchanged looks with
each other, and then with their mother. Irene curved her pretty chin
in comment upon her father's incorrigibility, and Penelope made a droll
mouth, but the Colonel remained serenely content with his finesse. "I
got 'em out of the way," he said, as soon as they were gone, and before
his wife had time to fall upon him, "because I've got through my talk
with him, and now I want to talk with YOU. It's just as I said,
Persis; he wants to go into the business with me."
"It's lucky for you," said his wife, meaning that now he would not be
made to suffer for attempting to hoax her. But she was too intensely
interested to pursue that matter further. "What in the world do you
suppose he means by it?"
"Well, I should judge by his talk that he had been trying a good many
different things since he left college, and he hain't found just the
thing he likes--or the thing that likes him. It ain't so easy. And
now he's got an idea that he can take hold of the paint and push it in
other countries--push it in Mexico and push it in South America. He's
a splendid Spanish scholar,"--this was Lapham's version of Corey's
modest claim to a smattering of the language,--"and he's been among the
natives enough to know their ways. And he believes in the paint,"
added the Colonel.
"I guess he believes in something else besides the paint," said Mrs.
Lapham.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, Silas Lapham, if you can't see NOW that he's after Irene, I
don't know what ever CAN open your eyes. That's all."
The Colonel pretended to give the idea silent consideration, as if it
had not occurred to him before. "Well, then, all I've got to say is,
that he's going a good way round. I don't say you're wrong, but if
it's Irene, I don't see why he should want to go off to South America
to get her. And that's what he proposes to do. I guess there's some
paint about it too, Persis. He says he believes in it,"--the Colonel
devoutly lowered his voice,--"and he's willing to take the agency on
his own account down there, and run it for a commission on what he can
sell."
"Of course! He isn't going to take hold of it any way so as to feel
beholden to you. He's got too much pride for that."
"He ain't going to take hold of it at all, if he don't mean paint in
the first place and Irene afterward. I don't object to him, as I know,
either way, but the two things won't mix; and I don't propose he shall
pull the wool over my eyes--or anybody else. But, as far as heard
from, up to date, he means paint first, last, and all the time. At any
rate, I'm going to take him on that basis. He's got some pretty good
ideas about it, and he's been stirred up by this talk, just now, about
getting our manufactures into the foreign markets. There's an
overstock in everything, and we've got to get rid of it, or we've got
to shut down till the home demand begins again. We've had two or three
such flurries before now, and they didn't amount to much. They say we
can't extend our commerce under the high tariff system we've got now,
because there ain't any sort of reciprocity on our side,--we want to
have the other fellows show all the reciprocity,--and the English have
got the advantage of us every time. I don't know whether it's so or
not; but I don't see why it should apply to my paint. Anyway, he wants
to try it, and I've about made up my mind to let him. Of course I
ain't going to let him take all the risk. I believe in the paint TOO,
and I shall pay his expenses anyway."
"So you want another partner after all?" Mrs. Lapham could not forbear
saying.
"Yes, if that's your idea of a partner. It isn't mine," returned her
husband dryly.
"Well, if you've made up your mind, Si, I suppose you're ready for
advice," said Mrs. Lapham.
The Colonel enjoyed this. "Yes, I am. What have you got to say
against it?"
"I don't know as I've got anything. I'm satisfied if you are."
"Well?"
"When is he going to start for South America?"
"I shall take him into the office a while. He'll get off some time in
the winter. But he's got to know the business first."
"Oh, indeed! Are you going to take him to board in the family?"
"What are you after, Persis?"
"Oh, nothing! I presume he will feel free to visit in the family, even
if he don't board with us."
"I presume he will."
"And if he don't use his privileges, do you think he'll be a fit person
to manage your paint in South America?"