"I have told you the truth. I've learned my lesson; I can't stand
late hours. I don't want another breakdown like that one last
winter. I tell you I go to bed regularly early. I'm in bed every
night at half past ten."
A silence.
Then: "That'll do to tell! I bet if Johnnie Benton was here to dance
with, your health would be all right!"
"Johnnie Benton?" Scorn and derision at such a suggestion. "Excuse
me if I seem to yawn. Anyway, he's engaged to somebody down East."
"Who said so? You're making that up! I don't believe it."
"Nobody told me. It's likely, you know that. The way he goes round
proposing to everybody."
"He never proposed to me."
"Oh, get out! He must have!"
Martha was rejoicing in her own hypocrisy. She was guzzling down the
impression she made. People said it was too sweet of her to have
thought of bringing old Miss Knight to the party tenderly in her car.
For Miss Knight was a decrepit old primary teacher of Martha's
infancy, who seldom went out, and she had beamed every minute of the
afternoon upon the dancing children, and blessed Martha loudly for
her kindness in bringing her, as Martha had counted on her doing.
Martha had remembered the poor. The poor, now, were hard to find in
that town. But Martha had sought out a family whose house had been
burned recently, and bestirred even protesting Greta to help her to
succor them.
"You mustn't be such a lazy selfish pig, Greta!" she had gurgled when
the room was fullest of listeners. She had talked, too, cunningly of
the turkey she was roasting for Christmas dinner.
"I never had a chance to roast a turkey before," she said to mothers
whose daughters were known to be indifferent to cook-stoves, "but
I've always wanted to. I adore making mince pies; I'm making a lot
of mincemeat, all myself, to take back with me. Yes, I'm fond of
cooking. I get my own dinners with Miss Curtis, my friend in
Chicago. I have more time than she does. She teaches school; but,
of course, now that I'm in business, I'm busier." And she would look
at the neighbors simply, quietly. She even dared to say innocently
to her mother, just when the gossips might be supposed to be
listening:
"Did I tell you, mammie, I met Eve the other day? She's given up New
York. Her father isn't well and she's going to stay in Chicago.
She's coming down for a week-end soon, if he's better."
And when the neighbors would be gone she would run and give her
mother gloating hugs, which asked as plainly as her voice could have
spoken, "Don't I just get it across?"