What Will People Say? A Novel. Hughes Rupert
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Ten Eyck gave him this diploma also, though his motive was rather one of rebuke to Persis for her little tang of surprise.
"You needn't raise your brows, Persis, because Forbesy knows senators and things," he said. "He's a plutocrat, too. I caught him depositing a million dollars in one of our best little banks to-day."
"A million dollars!" Forbes gasped. "Is there that much money in the world?"
Forbes had no desire to obtain the reputation of money under false pretenses. Yet he could not delicately discuss his exact poverty. He could not decently announce: "I have only my small army pay and a few hundred dollars in the bank." It would imply that these people were interested in his financial status. Yet even the pretense by silence troubled him, till his problem was dismissed by an interruption:
"Is anybody at home?"
Mrs. Neff spoke into the stillness as if she had materialized from nothing. Nobody had noticed her approach, and every one was startled. To Forbes her sharp voice came as a rescue from incantation. And Mrs. Neff was in the mood of the most unromantic reality. She did not pause to be greeted or questioned, but went at her discourse with a flying start:
"I'm mad and I'm hungry as the devil—oh, pardon me! I didn't see my angel child. Alice, darling, how on earth did you get here? Murray, if you have a human heart in your buzzum get the waiter man to run for a sandwich and a—a—no, I'll be darned if I'll take tea, in spite of example to youngers, who never follow our good examples, anyway; make it a highball, Murray; Scotch, and quick!"
The waiter nodded in response to Ten Eyck's nod, and vanished with an excellent imitation of great speed.
"Give over, Win!" Mrs. Neff continued, prodding Miss Mather aside and wedging forward with the chair Ten Eyck surrendered to her. "What's in those sandwiches? Lettuce? Thanks! Don't all ask me at once where I've been! I'm the little lady what seen her dooty and done it. If my angel child had done hers she would be even now listening to a lecture on Current Topics, so that she could inform her awful mother, as she calls me, what the tariff talk is all about, and who Salonica is, and why the Vulgarians are fighting the Balkans. But, of course, being a modern child, she plays hookey and goes to thés dansants while her poor old mother works."
"But mother dear, I was just—"
"Don't tell it, my child! I know what you're going to say: that Persis picked you up and dragged you here by the hair, and Persis will back you up, of course, like the dear little liar she is. But I'll save you the trouble, darlings. Where is he? Is he still here or did he learn of my approach and flit?"
"He—who?" said every one, zealously, with a stare of innocence sadly overdone.
"He—who?" Mrs. Neff mocked. "He-haw! Oh, but you're a putrid lot of actors. So he has been here. Well, I mention no names, but if a certain young person whose initials are Stowe Webb wants to meet a little old lady named Trouble, let him come out from under the table."
"Mother dear, how you do run on," Alice protested. "I don't think you really need another highball."
"Another! Listen to that. Dutiful child trying to save erring mother from a drunkard's grave! And me choking with thirst since luncheon! Do you know where I've been? Yes? Then I will tell you. I've been at a committee meeting of the Vacation Savings Fund."
The waiter brought a tiny flask, a tall glass, and a siphon, and offered to mix her a potion; but she motioned him aside and arranged it to her own taste. The band struck up, and she sipped hastily as she talked:
"That's the most insulting music I ever heard, and I'm just mad enough to dance well. If nobody has any prior claim on this young soldier man, he's mine. Mr. Forbes, would you mind supporting your grandmother around the room once or twice?"
Forbes had counted on having this dance with Persis. He had wasted one important tango while Alice poured out her woes. To squander this dance on her mother was a grievous loss. There was nothing for him to do, however, but yield.
He bowed low and smiled. "Nothing would give me more pleasure."
Mrs. Neff returned his bow with an old-fashioned courtesy, as she beamed:
"Very prettily said! Old fashioned and nice. My first husband would have answered like that. Did Murray tell you that I had offered you the job of being my third husband?"
"Mother!" Alice gasped.
Forbes was exquisitely ill at ease. It is hard to parry banter of that sort from a woman. He bowed again and answered with an ambiguous smile:
"Nothing would give me more pleasure."
"Fine! Then we may as well announce our engagement. Kind friends, permit me to introduce my next husband, Mr.—Mr.—what is your first name, darling?"
"Mother!" Alice implored.
"Oh, I'm sure his first name can't be Mother. But we're missing the dance. Come along, hero mine!"
Forbes cast a farewell look of longing at Persis, who was regarding him with an amused bewilderment.
The blare of the band was as effectual as a Gabriel's trumpet opening graves. From the tables the dead came to life and took on stilts if not wings.
Big Bob Fielding and Winifred Mather set out at once in close embrace.
"Look at 'em! Look at 'em!" Ten Eyck chortled. "They're grappled like two old-time battleships on a heavy sea." Ten Eyck was the great-great-grandson of one of the first commissioned officers in the American navy, a rival even of Paul Jones. So now his comment was nautical. "Bob and Winifred remind me of the Bonhomme Richard and the Serapis. And Winifred is like old John Paul Jones: when everybody else is dead her motto is: 'I've just begun to fight.'"
But Alice could not smile. She folded her hands and sighed. "It's awful to be a widow when they play that tango."
Persis provided for her at once. "Murray, you take Alice out and dance with her."
Ten Eyck saluted. "Come on, Alice, we'll go in for the consolation stakes."
Alice protested: "But we can't leave you alone."
Persis beckoned to a lonesome-looking acquaintance at another table, and he came to her with wings outstretched. She locked pinions with him, and they were away.
Ten Eyck put his arms up like racks; Alice hung herself across them, and they romped away. As they performed it, the dance was as harmless as a game of tag.
As Persis was twirled past Forbes now and again, her eyes would meet his with a gaze of deep inquiry.
And he was thinking so earnestly of her that at some indefinitely later period he was almost surprised to find that Mrs. Neff was in his arms, and that they were footing it intricately through a restless maze. He realized, also, that he had not spoken to her yet. He cast about in his mind for a topic of conversation, as one whips a dark trout-pool, and brought up a question:
"That Vacation Savings Fund—may I ask what it is?"
"You may, indeed, young man," she answered, and talked glibly as she danced, occasionally imitating a strain of music with mocking sounds. "It's an attempt a lot of us old women have been making to teach the poor woiking goil what we can't learn ourselves; namely, to save up money—la-de-de-da-de-da! The poor things slave like mules and they're paid like slaves—te-dum-te-dum!—yet most of them never think of putting a penny by for a rainy day, or what's more important—ta-ra-rum!—a sunny day.
"So Willie Enslee's mother, and Mrs. Clifton Ranger, and the Atterby girls, and a gang of other busybodies got ourselves together and cooked up a scheme—la-de-de-da-de-da!—to encourage the girls to stay home—ta-ra-rum!—from a few moving-picture fêtes and cut down their ice-cream-soda orgies a little, and put the pennies into a fund to be used in giving each of them—te-dum-te-dum—a little holiday when her chance came—te-di-do-dee!"
"Splendid!" said