Part 10

“Ah, but that would be too heart-breaking!”

“Not at all. Not if she met some young fellow accidentally—don’t you see?”

“It would be difficult to manage; and hasn’t it been done?”

“Everything has been done, my dear fellow. Or, you might suppose a young lady who comes on here with her father, a veteran politician, delegate to the Republican or Democratic convention—all the conventions meet in Saratoga,—and some ardent young delegate falls in love with her. That would be new ground. There you would have the political novel, which they wonder every now and then some of us don’t write.” The smile faded from Kendricks’s lips, and I laughed. “Well, then, there’s nothing for it but the Social Science Congress. Have a brilliant professor win the heart of a lovely sister-in-law of another member by a paper he reads before the Congress. No? You’re difficult. Are you stopping here?”

“Yes; are you?”

“I try to give myself the air of it when I am feeling very proud. But really, we live at a most charming little hotel on a back street, out of the whirl and rush that we should prefer to be in if we could afford it.” He said it must be delightful, and he made the proper inquiries about Mrs. March. Kendricks never forgot the gentleman in the artist, and he was as true to the convenances as if they had been principles. That was what made Mrs. March like his stories so much more than the stories of some people who wrote better. He said he would drop in during the afternoon, and I went indoors on the pretext of buying a newspaper. Then, without engaging rooms for Mrs. Deering and Miss Gage, I hurried home.

VIII

“WELL, did you get the rooms?” asked my wife as soon as she saw me.

She did not quite call it across the street to me as I came up from where she sat on the piazza.

“No, I didn’t,” I said boldly, if somewhat breathlessly.

“Why didn’t you? You ought to have gone to the States if they were full at the Grand Union.”

“They were not full, unless Kendricks got their last room.”

“Do you mean that he was there? Mr. Kendricks? If you are hoaxing me, Basil!”

“I am not, my dear; indeed I’m not,” said I, beginning to laugh, and this made her doubt me the more.

“Because if you are I shall simply never forgive you. And I’m in earnest this time,” she replied.

“Why should I want to hoax you about such a vital thing as that. Couldn’t Kendricks come to Saratoga as well as we? He’s here looking up the ground of a story I should think from what he said.”

“No matter what he’s here for; he’s here, and that’s enough. I never knew of anything so perfectly providential. Did you tell him, Basil? Did you dare?”

“Tell him what?”

“You know; about Miss Gage.”

“Well, I came very near it. I dangled the fact before his eyes once, but I caught it away again in time. He never saw it. I thought I’d better let you tell him.”

“Is he coming here to see us?”

“He asked if he might.”

“He’s always nice. I don’t know that I shall ask him to do anything for them, after all; I’m not sure that she’s worth it. I wish some commoner person had happened along. Kendricks is too precious. I shall have to think about it; and don’t you tease me, Basil, will you?”

“I don’t know. If I’m not allowed to have any voice in the matter, I’m afraid I shall take it out in teasing. I don’t see why Miss Gage isn’t quite as good as Kendricks. I believe she’s taller, and though he’s pretty good-looking, I prefer her style of beauty. I dare say his family is better, but I fancy she’s richer; and his family isn’t good beyond New York city, and her money will go anywhere. It’s a pretty even thing.”

“Good gracious, Basil! you talk as if it were a question of marriage.”

“And you think it is.”

“Now I see that you’re bent upon teasing, and we won’t talk any more, please. What time did he say he would call?”

“If I mayn’t talk, I can’t tell.”