Dorothea settled herself more comfortably in her uncle's lap. "You
certainly ought to be thankful you've never had it," she said. "It's
worse than being a leper. I've never been a leper, but when you're
that you can go out, the Bible says so, and people just pass you by
on the other side and let you alone. With diphtheria they don't let
you alone. Lepers are just outcasts, but diphtherias--what are
people who have diphtheria?--well, whatever they are, they're cast in
and nobody can see them except the nurses and the doctor and your
mother and father. The doctor said father mustn't come in my room,
as he had to go to his business, and father told him to go to the
devil--I heard him. I just love the way father talks when he's mad.
I couldn't have stood the long days if it hadn't been for you and
father coming in every evening. They certainly do a lot of things
when you're sick with contagiousness. Everything you eat out of and
drink out of has to be boiled and stewed, and the things you spit in
burned up, and the walls washed, and more foolishness!" Dorothea's
eyes rolled and her voice was emphatic. "I don't believe in a lot of
things, Uncle Winthrop. I wasn't really sick, and just had a teensy,
weensy bit of pain in my throat; and if I'd known what they were
going to do to me I'd have been one of those Science Christians and
kept it to myself."
"But suppose you had given it to Channing?" Dorothea's uncle settled
Dorothea more steadily on his lap. "The foolishness of wisdom is all
some see of it, but if Channing had taken diphtheria from you--"
"I don't believe there was any diphtheria for him to take. If I'd
been a poor person it would have been plain sore throat, and I'd had
some peace. Timkins says his little girl was a heap sicker than I
was, and her mother nursed her all the time, and she got well long
before I did. Are we very rich, Uncle Winthrop?"
"You are not billionaires. Your father has been fortunate and made
some money--"
"Is making money fortunate? Of course, I like nice things; but a
whole lot of us children feel like"--Dorothea's arms waved as if to
free herself from unseen strappings--"feel like Chinese children.
Our feet aren't really bound, sure enough, but we can't do like we
like. Sometimes I just want to run as fast as a racehorse, and
holler as loud as the poor children do in the park. I hate
regulations and proper things. If father were to lose his money, do
you suppose we would have to have a special time for everything we
do? Go to bed, and get up, and eat, and say lessons, and study
lessons, and take lessons, and go out, and come in, and lie down in a
dark room, and go again to drive or walk, and in between everything
you do dress over again, and never, _never_ run or climb trees or
tear your clothes and have just plain fun? I love dirt. I do! I
have to be so careful with my finger nails and my clothes that if
ever I have children I am going to let them get right down in the
dirt and roll in it and make all the noise they want. Mother says a
loud voice is so inelegant. So is affectatiousness, I think, and I
wasn't born with a soft voice. I just bawl at Channing sometimes. I
do it on purpose. I'm like father. I get tired of being elegant.
Haven't you any kind of candy anywhere, Uncle Winthrop? Mother said
I could have a few pieces if it didn't have nuts in it."
Laine reached for a drawer in the book-piled table near which he sat.
"If I had known I was to have the honor of a visit from you this
afternoon I would have been better prepared for entertainment. I'm
afraid this candy isn't very good. It's been here since your last
visit, and--"
"That's been two months ago. We didn't get back from Florida until
February, and in March I was taken sick, and then we went to
Lakewood, and now it's May. Mother can't understand how I got sick.
She says she tries so hard to keep us from diseases and they come
anyhow. I wish I didn't have to be educated and find out
things--mother knows a lot; but it makes her so nervous. I'd rather
be sick sometimes than afraid of being all the time. This certainly
is poor candy. I promised mother I wouldn't eat a thing Caddie gave
me if she'd let me come to see you; but I don't think she'd mind if I
took home some of those little cakes Caddie makes with almonds in
them. Do you suppose she has any?"
"I couldn't guess. I'll ring and find out."
"I'll ask her." Dorothea slipped from her uncle's lap. "I'll be
back in a minute," and before Laine could press the button which
would bring Moses she had disappeared. Five minutes later she was
back, in her hands a good-sized paper box, tied clumsily with red
string, and as she put it on the table she patted it with
satisfaction.
"That's for Channing," she said, half leaning against the table and
drumming on it with the tips of her fingers. "Caddie didn't have any
cakes. She says you used to like sweet things, and it was once a
pleasure to cook for you; but if you enjoy anything you eat now you
never confess it to her. She says you eat, but you don't know the
name of what you're eating, and one thing is the same as another. I
think her feelings are getting hurt, Uncle Winthrop."
"Are they? I'm sorry. Caddie is a spoiled creature. I long ago
exhausted the English language in commendation of her efforts.
Nothing is so wearing on one as continual demand for praise, and
Caddie's capacity is exhaustless. I'm sorry she didn't have the
little cakes."
"She's going to make some to-morrow and send them to me. It's
pop-corn in this box." Dorothea held up the latter and shook it.
"Moses brought it from Virginia. They are the cunningest little ears
you've ever saw. Wasn't it nice of Moses to think about us and bring
it? Of course, he didn't know we would be away so long and that I
was going to be sick and he wouldn't see me until spring; but it's a
thing that keeps, and the drier it is the prettier it pops, he says.
What is that picture over there, Uncle Winthrop? It is very ugly."
Laine glanced at the picture to which Dorothea pointed. "That is a
Jan Steen--'The Village Fair.' Sorry you don't like it. You think
that Botticelli is ugly also. A little later in life it may meet
with your approval. The original is priceless."
"A lot of priceless things aren't pretty. I don't ever expect to be
a culturated person. Mother makes me go to all those old galleries
and museums, when we're in Europe, and look at a lot of cracked
pictures and broken statues and carved things, and wants me to think
they're beautiful, but I don't. Some of them are hideous, and I get
so tired of being told I must admire them that I make a face inside
at most of them as I walk along, though, of course, outside, for
mother's sake, I don't make any signs. I'm a great disappointment to
mother. We had a lady artist guide the last time we were in Italy.
She used to get so mad with me that once she shook me. Father would
have killed her if she hadn't been a lady, and after that he and I
used to go out by ourselves and have the grandest times. He'd show
me just a few pictures at the time, and tell me all about them, and
some of them I just loved. Mother says you have so many beautiful
things, Uncle Winthrop, and that it's a shame for a man to have them
all by himself." She looked around the large room, and again took
her seat in her uncle's lap. "Some things I like in here, and some I
don't. You've got an awful lot of books, haven't you?"
"Too many, I'm afraid. Would you mind if I smoked?" Laine reached
for a cigar from the box on the table and held it between his fingers.
"May I?"
"Of course. I hope I won't forget, though, and kiss you. I'm so apt
to when I'm talking, if I like a person. Tobacco is so bitter. I'll
tell you what I think is the matter with this room. It's--it's--"
She looked around carefully. "It's something that isn't in it. I
don't know what it is. Why don't you get married, Uncle Winthrop?
Maybe your wife would know."
Laine put the unlighted cigar back on the table, and Dorothea's
hands, which were stroking one of his, were gripped by it and held
tightly.
"I do not doubt it. The trouble is in getting the wife."
Dorothea sat upright. "The idea! I heard Miss Robin French say the
other day the way unmarried men were run after was outrageous, and
all they had to do was to stand still and crow a little, and up would
come a-clucking all kinds of hens, little ones and big ones, and
young ones and old ones, and-- Don't you tell anybody, but I think
she'd come, too!" Dorothea's hands came together, and she laughed
gleefully. "Father says if Miss Robin would give up hoping she'd be
happier." Suddenly her face sobered. "Do all ladies try to marry a
man, Uncle Winthrop?"
"They most certainly do not." Laine smiled in Dorothea's face, and
before the child's clear eyes his own, full of weary pain, turned
away. "Many of them take very long to make up their minds to marry
at all."
"Have you ever asked one to marry you?"
Laine did not answer. Dorothea's question was unheard. His thoughts
were elsewhere.
"Have you?"
"Have I what?"
"Ever asked a lady to many you?"
"I have."
The hand which Dorothea had been stroking was dropped. She sprang to
her feet and stood in front of him, her hands clasped in rigid
excitement on her breast.
"When"--her voice curled upward in quivering delight--"when is she
going to do it, Uncle Winthrop?"
"I do not know. She has not said she would do it at all."
"Not said--she would--marry--you!" Delight had changed to
indignation high and shrill, and Dorothea's eyes blazed brilliantly.
"Is she a crazy lady?"
"She is not."
"Then why?"
"She is not quite sure she-- It is not a thing to talk about,
Dorothea." He drew her again on his lap and unclasped the clenched
fingers. "We are good friends, you and I, and I have told you what I
have told no one else. So far as I am concerned, it does not matter
who knows, but until she decides we will not talk of this again. You
understand, don't you, Dorothea?"
"I understand she must have very little sense. I don't see how you
could want to marry a lady who didn't know right off, the very first
minute, that she wanted to marry you. Do--do I know her, Uncle
Winthrop?"
"You do."
For a moment there was silence, broken only by the ticking of the
clock on the mantel; and slowly Dorothea turned to her uncle, her big
brown eyes troubled and uncertain. For half a moment she looked at
him, then, without warning, threw her arms around his neck and hid
her face against his.
"Is--is--it Claudia, Uncle Winthrop?" she whispered. "Is--it--my
cousin Claudia?"
"It is--your cousin Claudia."
The quiver in Laine's voice was beyond control, and, lifting the
child's face, he kissed it. "I have asked her to marry me, Dorothea,
but not yet has she promised to do so."
In Dorothea's cheeks two burning spots of red glowed brilliantly.
Slipping down from her uncle's lap, she drew a long breath. "I knew
she must be queer about something," she said, and her fingers
interlocked in trembling excitement. "She was too nice not to be,
but I didn't think she'd be this kind of queer. The idea of not
promising right away! I know what's the matter. It's her home and
her mother, and all the things she is doing in the country that she
don't want to give up. Why don't you go down there and make her,
Uncle Winthrop?"
"She asks me not to come--yet. There is no hotel, and--"
"Does she write to you?"