Angela's Business Part 2

She paused wickedly, but after all finished without malice, "To make your acquaintance." And so Mr. Garrott did not have to ask the country cousin on the spot what she was thinking about not to earn her keep.

The girl had been standing against the other corner of the bookcase all the time, it seemed. She was talking, in a polite sort of way, to another guest--Mr. Tilletts, the wealthy and seeking widower--and fanning away tobacco smoke with a hand too small for the heavy odds. Mr.

Tilletts was removed at once by the thoroughly competent Miss Wing.

Charles Garrott, recovered from the sudden little surprise, looked at the cousin with interest, and was at no loss for easy conversation.

While he knew of Miss Flower very well, he pointed out, he had had no idea that she was here this evening. In fact, he hadn't gathered that Miss Flower went in for--well, for this sort of thing, exactly.

"Why--I really don't, I'm afraid," said she in her soft voice. "I don't suppose I understand it all very well. I just came--because Cousin Mary invited me!"

She hesitated, then laughed, and finally said: "And you see, it's the first party I've been invited to since I came here to live!"

"And you like parties?"

"Yes, so much. Don't you?"

The remark, at, and as to, the Redmantle, seemed delightful.

"I did, when I was young and gay. Now, I never seem to have time to enjoy myself any more. You've been meeting a good many people, I suppose?"

"Well, no,--not many yet. Really hardly any." The girl laughed, and again showed a charming navete: "You're the very first man I've met since we came here--except Mr. Tilletts!"

"But that's a tremendous exception, Miss Flower. You appreciate that he's one of our leading swains?"

"Oh, _is_ he!" she said, a little disconcerted. "Why--I hope he didn't think I was rude! I thought he was--somebody's father, you see, or uncle...."

Charles Garrott regarded the cousin pleasurably, with no thought of cross-examination. He, the authority, it need scarcely be said, had recognized this girl at sight. Manifestly, she was none other than the Nice Girl, the Womanly Woman, whom he and all moderns were forever holding up to scorn. Doubtless it was merely the increased conservative reaction: but Charles, for the moment, seemed conscious of no scorn in him toward Miss Angela Flower.

The cousin was pretty; not beautiful, no throne-shaker; but pretty, and attractive-looking. Wholly normal she looked, quite engagingly so, with her fine clear skin, smooth dark hair, and large limpid eyes. In her manner there was something soft, simple, and sweet, an ingenuous desire to please and be pleased; Miss Flower was feminine, in short,--it could not be denied. In a company, where the women acted like men, and the men acted like the Third s.e.x, this girl seemed content to remind you, like her mothers, that she was a woman.

Her conversation, intrinsically speaking, was not remarkable. But--the insidious contrast again--in a Midst where everybody else was conversing remarkably, plain conversation itself became an episode, and a charming one. She spoke of bridge, saying that she and Cousin Mary were hoping to "get up a table" one night very soon; of Mitch.e.l.lton, where she had lived seven years till September; of the maxixe and the smallness of the house Mary Wing had taken for them; a dozen such un-New simplicities.

And then, as she happened to be saying something about the strangeness of the city, "just at first," Charles Garrott exclaimed suddenly, rather pleased:--

"There's a friend of yours, at any rate, Miss Flower--Donald Manford!

The last one in the world you'd expect to meet here."

The engineer must have just come in; over bobbing heads, through waving arms, his fine figure and bronzed face had been suddenly glimpsed at the doorway. This young man was another cousin of Mary Wing's; she, indeed, had raised him by hand; and he looked hardly less alien at the Redmantle Club than Miss Angela Flower herself.

To Garrott's astonishment, Miss Flower did not know Donald from Adam.

"Is _that_ Mr. Manford?" she exclaimed, surprised apparently by her cousin's cousin's good looks. "Of course I've known _of_ him for the longest time, but--"

"Why, that's strange--he's like a brother to Mary Wing. But then," said he, reconsidering, "Donald's out of the city half the time, and does nothing but work when he's here."

"Oh! Cousin Mary said she was going to bring him to see us some time--but--"

He enlarged upon the young engineer's industry (trained into him by Miss Wing); explained how he was busier than visual just now in view of his coming trip to Wyoming; mentioned the great Mora dam and cut-off project, on which he expected a commission under Gebhardt himself.

"And your cousin Mary, too," he concluded, in the justest way, "is an awfully busy person, you see."

"Yes, of course, I know! She does work _terribly_ hard, doesn't she?"

After the slightest pause, the girl added: "It's such a pity she has to, don't you think so?"

On which Donald Manford dropped cleanly from Charles's mind, and he inquired with authoritative interest, artfully concealed: "How do you mean, exactly?"

"Well--I don't know--"

She looked at him, laughing a little, as if not certain how far she could say what she meant; but finding his gaze so extremely encouraging, she went on seriously:--

"Don't you think when a woman gets really wrapped up in business--and all that--she's apt to miss some of the best things of life?"

He might have laughed at the quaint deliciousness of that, to him, Charles Garrott. But he didn't.

"That's the great question your s.e.x is working out, isn't it?" he said, carefully. "I don't suppose work--just moderate, useful occupation--ever hurt anybody much, do you?"

"Oh, no!--of course not. That's just what I believe, too. I believe everybody ought to have work to do. But--all the work isn't teaching or going to an office--or being a public speaker--do you think so?"

"Oh, never. No, indeed."

She hesitated and said, laughing: "I know _I_ find it work enough just keeping a house and doing the housework--and being a daughter and sister!"

It was at that point that Charles's purely conventional look altered, his inmost self p.r.i.c.king up its ears, as it were. And a moment later the simple girl said, in the navest way imaginable, what seemed immediately to stick in his scientific Woman lore like a burr:--

"Of course I haven't studied and read like Cousin Mary, but truly it seems to me that--just making a home is sometimes all the business a woman could possibly attend to...."

He stood looking down at her in the strangest way, engrossed with novel reflections. She would have been astonished had she guessed how her chance phrase had set this man's mind to working, behind the pleasant mask. In her innocence she clearly did not understand, even after all the speeches, how at the Redmantle Club we talked of all businesses, and everybody's business, but never the business of making a home.

The reactionary talk proceeded for a s.p.a.ce. But shortly, there were signs that the meeting was about to adjourn. And it was clear to Charles, as a true writer of a philosophical tendency, that he should be glad to be alone for a s.p.a.ce now, and to think.

He said suddenly:--

"Miss Flower, I want very much to introduce Donald Manford to you, before I go. May I do it now? Won't you promise to hold fast to this bookcase, and not budge till I come back?"

The girl promised. She seemed pleased by his thought of her, but sorry over his own impending departure. "Oh, do _you_ have to go now?" she said, and her woman's eyes seemed to add quite plainly: "I'd lots rather talk to you than meet Mr. Manford."

The young authority smiled at her, and disappeared into the company.

Directly, he was back again, the engineer in tow.

Donald, found conversing in a nook with another handsome guest, a Miss Helen Carson, had rather resisted removal and been hauled off, truth to tell, in some ill-humor. But Charles, for his part, felt warmly pleased with himself, bringing together these two nice, normal cousins of Mary Wing's. The girl too, looked pleased; her eyes were s.h.i.+ning, a pretty color tinged her young cheek.

"I'm so glad to meet you, Mr. Manford, at last. We're really sort of connections, aren't we--once removed!"

"Yes, I believe so!--that's fine. Delighted to know you," said Mr.

Manford. "I hope you enjoyed the speeches this evening?"

"Well--that's hardly a fair question!" laughed Miss Angela, looking from one man to the other. "Are you a--regular member?"

The query brought applauding laughter from Mr. Garrott and a weak groan from Mr. Manford. "You mean I look like one? Oh, that's a blow! No, honor bright," he added, "I leave all the advanced stuff to Mary."