The Dominant Strain Part 2

"Cast your bread upon the waters, and it will come floating back to you in time to be fed out to the next man."

"Bad for the next man's digestion, though!" Bobby Dane commented, as he set down his empty cup. "You needn't offer me any of your second-hand pabulum, Beatrix."

"You probably will be in such dire straits that I shall offer you the first chance at it, Bobby," she retorted.

"Another cup of tea, and two pieces of lemon, please," Sally demanded.

"What is the particular appositeness of your remarks, Beatrix?"

"Mr. Arlt and Mrs. Stanley. Also the conservation of philanthropic energy."

Sally stirred her tea with a protesting clatter of the spoon.

"Beatrix, I am glad I didn't go to college. Your mind is appalling; your language is more so. May I ask whether you are going into slumming?"

"No. Worse."

"For the family credit, I must draw the line at the Salvation Army,"

Bobby adjured her. "A poke bonnet and a tambourine wouldn't be a proper fruitage for our family tree."

"What are you going to do, Beatrix?" Sally repeated. "It is something uncanny, I know. I felt it in the air, and that was the reason I stayed until everybody else had gone. I knew you wished to confess."

"But I didn't."

"Not even to ease your conscience?"

"My conscience is perfectly easy."

"But you said it was worse than slumming."

"It is. Slumming is aristocratic and conservative; I am about to be radical."

"Don't tell me it is spectacles and statistics," Bobby pleaded. "I abhor statistical women; they are so absorbed in collating material that they never listen to the point of even your best stories."

"Not a statistic, I promise you, Bobby."

"Nor a poke bonnet?"

"No; my choice is for toques, not pokes. Do you know Mr. Arlt?"

"Never heard of the gentleman." Bobby's tone expressed cheery indifference, as he bent over to prod the fire.

"But you met him, Bobby."

"It was in a crowd, then, and it doesn't signify that I've heard of him.

Who is he, Sally?"

With the freedom born of intimacy, Sally was eating up her lemon rind, and there was a momentary pause, while she shook her head. Beatrix answered the question.

"He is Mr. Thayer's accompanist, that little German who was with him at Mrs. Stanley's."

"Have you heard Thayer yet, Sally?" Bobby asked parenthetically.

"No. I have heard about him till I am weary of his name, though, and such a name! Cotton Mather Thayer!"

"Did it ever occur to you the handicap of going through life as Bobby?"

inquired the owner of that name. "It is a handicap; but it is also a distinct advantage. n.o.body ever expects me to amount to anything. No matter how much I fizzle, they'll say 'Oh, but it's only Bobby Dane!'

Now, Cotton Mather Thayer is bound to fill a niche in the--the--"

"Lofty cathedral of fame reared by the ages." Sally helped him out of his rhetorical abyss.

"Thanks awfully; yes. And then Beatrix will scatter her water-soaked breadcrumbs around him to coax the little sparrows to make their nests in the crown of his hat and get free music lessons for their young in exchange for keeping his head warm."

Beatrix frowned; then she laughed. Bobby was incorrigible, and there was no use in expecting seriousness from him. He and Sally were alike; Beatrix was cast in a different mould. She could suffer and enjoy with an intensity unknown to either of the others; yet she was close kin to her cousin in her appreciation of his irresponsible fun, even though it would never have occurred to her to originate it. Moreover, even if it had occurred to her, it is doubtful whether she could have accomplished it.

"Who gets first bite at your bread, Beatrix?" Bobby asked encouragingly.

"Granted that Arlt, whoever he is, gets second nibble, who comes in ahead?"

"Mrs. Stanley." In spite of herself, Beatrix laughed at the logical application of her metaphor. Stout, energetic Mrs. Stanley was so like a greedy young turkey snapping up the crumbs dropped from the hands of her superiors.

Sally raised her brows.

"Knowing Mrs. Stanley's appet.i.te, I only wonder that any of the loaves and fishes should be left over," she drawled maliciously.

"Mrs. Stanley has her good points, Sally."

Bobby interrupted.

"Not a point. She is all built in parabolic curves. Why can't you be accurate, Beatrix, as befits your higher education? You took conic sections a year before I did."

"All the more reason I should forget them sooner. Besides, haven't I begged you not to allude to the fact that I am a year older than you?"

"But is Mr. Thayer as great a singer as they say?" Sally asked, with sudden irrelevancy.

"Greater. He is almost perfectly satisfactory."

"Not quite?"

"Not yet; he will be, some day, if he can only have an unhappy love affair," Beatrix answered placidly, as she rose from the tea table and crossed to the open fire.

"That is an humane speech."

"Artistic, though. He needs just that to develop him. He strikes every note but tenderness."

"Tenderness is generally located at _C in Alt_, Beatrix. A baritone can't soar to that height; you should be content when he growls defiance and moans resignation."

"Besides," Sally suggested; "it is quite within the limits of possibility that Mr. Thayer might have a happy love affair. Would that answer your purpose, Beatrix?"

"Not in the least. It is his minor key that needs developing."