Amazing Grace Part 15

"Recognize it? Of course _I_ recognize it--but I'm not a fair sample.

I work for my living."

He was silent for a moment, looking at the manikins with a sort of half-hearted pity.

"If they could all be induced to work they'd not be what they are--to men," he observed.

"To men?"

"I find that an American wife is a tormenting side-issue to a man's busy life," he said, with a tinge of regret. "And I am sorry, too--for they are most charming. For my part, I should like a woman who could do things--who was clever enough to be an inspiration."

I nodded heartily, forgetful of personalities.

"I too like the workers in the world," I coincided. "My ideal man is one whose name will be made into a verb."

He laughed.

"Like Marconi, eh, and Pasteur--and--"

"And Boycott, and Macadam, and--oh, a host of others!"

It was quite a full minute before he spoke again.

"I don't see how I could make my name into a verb," he said quietly, "but I must begin to think about it. It is certainly a valuable suggestion."

It was my turn to laugh, which I did, nervously.

"In Oldburgh, Tait seems to stand for the opposite of dictate," I hazarded. "That means to _talk_, and you won't--talk."

"But I am talking," he insisted. "I'm asking you questions as fast as ever I can."

"However, your technique is wrong," I replied. "You shouldn't ask questions of a newspaper woman. You should let her ask the questions, and you should furnish the answers."

"But you're not a newspaper woman now, are you?" he demanded in some alarm. "I hope not--and certainly I must ask you questions before I begin to tell you things. There are quite a few facts which I wish to find out now."

"And they are, first--?"

"Where you live?"

I told him, and he took from his pocket a small leather book with his name, Maitland Tait, and an address in smaller letters which I could not make out, on the inside lining. In a small, rather cramped hand, he wrote the address I gave him, "1919 West Clydemont Place," then looked up at me.

"Next?" I laughed, in a flutter.

"Next I want to know when you will let me come to see you?"

"When?" I repeated, rather blankly.

He drew slightly back.

"I should have said, of course, _if_ you will let me come, but--"

"But I shall be very glad to have you come," I made haste to explain.

"I--I was only thinking!"

I was thinking of my betrothed--for the first time that afternoon.

"The length of time I am to stay in the South is very uncertain," he went on to explain with a gentle dignity. "At first it appeared that I might have to make a long stay, but we are settling our affairs so satisfactorily that I may be able to get back to Pittsburgh at any time now. That's why I feel that I can't afford to lose a single day in doing the really important things."

"Then come," I said, with a friendly show, which was in truth a desperate spirit of abandon. "Come some day--"

"To-morrow?" he asked.

"To-morrow--at four."

But during the rest of the meal grandfather and Uncle Lancelot came and took their places on either side of me. They were distinctly de trop, but I could not get rid of them.

"This is--really the wrong thing to do, Grace," grandfather said, so soberly that when I rose to go and looked in the mirror to see that my hat was all right, his own sad blue eyes were looking out at me in perplexed reproach. "--Very wrong."

Then the sad blue eyes took in the lower part of my face. I believe I've neglected to say that there is a dimple in my chin, and Uncle Lancelot's spirit is a cliff-dweller living there. He comes out and taunts the thoughtful eyes above.

"Nonsense, parson!" he expostulated jauntily now. "Look on the lips while they are red! She's _young_!"

"Youth doesn't excuse folly," said grandfather severely.

"It exudes it, however," the other argued.

I turned away, resolutely, from their bickering. I had enough to contend with besides them--for suddenly I had begun wondering what on earth mother _would_ say, after she'd said: "Grace, you amaze me!"

CHAPTER IX

MAITLAND TAIT

The only difference between the houses in West Clydemont Place and museums was that there was no admission fee at the front door.

Otherwise they were identical, for the "auld lang syne" flavor greeted you the moment you put foot into that corner of the town. You knew instinctively that every family there owned its own lawn-mower and received crested invitations in the morning mail.

Yet it was certainly not fas.h.i.+onable! Indeed, from a butler-and-porte-cochere standpoint it was shabby. The business of owning your own lawn-mower arises from a state of mind, rather than from a condition of finances, anyway. We were poor, but aloof--and strung high with the past-tension. The admiral, the amba.s.sador and the artist rubbed our aristocracy in on any stray caller who lingered in the hall, if they had failed to be p.r.i.c.ked by it on the point of grandfather's jeweled sword in the library.

I saw 1919 through a new vista as I came up to it in the late dusk, following the Flag Day reception, and I wondered what the effect of all this antiquity would be on the mind of a man who so clearly disregarded the grandfather clause in one's book of life. I hoped that he would be amused by it, as he had been by the long-tailed D. A. R.

badge on my coat.

"You'd better have a little fire kindled up in the library, Grace,"

mother observed chillingly just after lunch that next afternoon. "It's true it's June, but--"

"But the day _is_ bleak and raw," I answered, with a sudden cordial sense of relief that she was on speaking terms with me again.

"Certainly I'll tell Cicely to make a fire."