第53章 PART SECOND(19)

They say there's a law ag'inst them things;and if there is,I don't understand why the police don't take up them that paints 'em.I hear 182tell,since I been here,that there's women that goes to have pictur's took from them that way by men painters."The point seemed aimed at March,as if he were personally responsible for the scandal,and it fell with a silencing effect for the moment.Nobody seemed willing to take it up,and Mrs.Dryfoos went on,with an old woman's severity:"I say they ought to be all tarred and feathered and rode on a rail.They'd be drummed out of town in Moffitt."Miss Mela said,with a crowing laugh:"I should think they would!And they wouldn't anybody go low neck to the opera-house there,either--not low neck the way they do here,anyway.""And that pack of worthless hussies,"her mother resumed,"that come out on the stage,and begun to kick""Laws,mother!"the girl shouted,"I thought you said you had your eyes shut!"All but these two simpler creatures were abashed at the indecorum of suggesting in words the commonplaces of the theatre and of art.

"Well,I did,Mely,as soon as I could believe my eyes.I don't know what they're doin'in all their churches,to let such things go on,"said the old woman."It's a sin and a shame,I think.Don't you,Coonrod?"A ring at the door cut short whatever answer he was about to deliver.

"If it's going to be company,Coonrod,"said his mother,making an effort to rise,"I reckon I better go up-stairs.""It's Mr.Fulkerson,I guess,"said Conrad."He thought he might come";and at the mention of this light spirit Mrs.Dryfoos sank contentedly back in her chair,and a relaxation of their painful tension seemed to pass through the whole company.Conrad went to the door himself (the serving-man tentatively,appeared some minutes later)and let in Fulkerson's cheerful voice before his cheerful person.

"Ah,how dye do,Conrad?Brought our friend,Mr.Beaton,with me,"those within heard him say;and then,after a sound of putting off overcoats,they saw him fill the doorway,with his feet set square and his arms akimbo.

IX.

"Ah!hello!hello !"Fulkerson said,in recognition of the Marches.

"Regular gathering of the clans.How are you,Mrs.Dryfoos?How do you do,Mrs.Mandel,Miss Christine,Mela,Aunt Hitty,and all the folks?

How you wuz?"He shook hands gayly all round,and took a chair next the old lady,whose hand he kept in his own,and left Conrad to introduce Beaton.But he would not let the shadow of Beaton's solemnity fall upon the company.He began to joke with Mrs.Dryfoos,and to match rheumatisms with her,and he included all the ladies in the range of appropriate pleasantries."I've brought Mr.Beaton along to-night,and I want you to make him feel at home,like you do me,Mrs.Dryfoos.

He hasn't got any rheumatism to speak of;but his parents live in Syracuse,and he's a kind of an orphan,and we've just adopted him down at the office.When you going to bring the young ladies down there,Mrs.

Mandel,for a champagne lunch?I will have some hydro-Mela,and Christine it,heigh?How's that for a little starter?We dropped in at your place a moment,Mrs.March,and gave the young folks a few pointers about their studies.My goodness!it does me good to see a boy like that of yours;business,from the word go;and your girl just scoops my youthful affections.She's a beauty,and I guess she's good,too.Well,well,what a world it is!Miss Christine,won't you show Mr.Beaton that seal ring of yours?He knows about such things,and I brought him here to see it as much as anything.It's an intaglio I brought from the other side,"he explained to Mrs.March,"and I guess you'll like to look at it.Tried to give it to the Dryfoos family,and when I couldn't,I sold it to 'em.Bound to see it on Miss Christine's hand somehow!Hold on!

Let him see it where it belongs,first!"

He arrested the girl in the motion she made to take off the ring,and let her have the pleasure of showing her hand to the company with the ring on it.Then he left her to hear the painter's words about it,which he continued to deliver dissyllabically as he stood with her under a gas-jet,twisting his elastic figure and bending his head over the ring.

"Well,Mely,child,"Fulkerson went on,with an open travesty of her mother's habitual address,"and how are you getting along?Mrs.Mandel hold you up to the proprieties pretty strictly?Well,that's right.

You know you'd be roaming all over the pasture if she didn't."The girl gurgled out her pleasure in his funning,and everybody took him.

on his own ground of privileged character.He brought them all together in their friendliness for himself,and before the evening was over he had inspired Mrs.Mandel to have them served with coffee,and had made both the girls feel that they had figured brilliantly in society,and that two young men had been devoted to them.

"Oh,I think he's just as lovely as he can live!"said Mela,as she stood a moment with her sister on the scene of her triumph,where the others had left them after the departure of their guests.

"Who?"asked Christine,deeply.As she glanced down at her ring,her eyes burned with a softened fire.

She had allowed Beaton to change it himself from the finger where she had worn it to the finger on which he said she ought to wear it.She did not know whether it was right to let him,but she was glad she had done it.

"Who?Mr.Fulkerson,goosie-poosie!Not that old stuckup Mr.Beaton of yours!""He is proud,"assented Christine,with a throb of exultation.

Beaton and Fulkerson went to the Elevated station with the Marches;but the painter said he was going to walk home,and Fulkerson let him go alone.

"One way is enough for me,"he explained."When I walk up,I don't.

walk down.Bye-bye,my son!"He began talking about Beaton to the Marches as they climbed the station stairs together."That fellow puzzles me.I don't know anybody that I have such a desire to kick,and at the same time that I want to flatter up so much.Affect you that way?"he asked of March.