第71章

Such gifted persons seemed to have been chosen by Providence to delight and inspire every one privileged to hear them.Such privileges had been omitted from the scheme of Miss Alicia's existence.She did not know, she would have felt it sacrilegious to admit it even if the fact had dawned upon her, that "dear papa" had been a heartlessly arrogant, utterly selfish, and tyrannical old blackguard of the most pronounced type.He had been of an absolute morality as far as social laws were concerned.He had written and delivered a denunciatory sermon a week, and had made unbearable by his ministrations the suffering hours and the last moments of his parishioners during the long years of his pastorate.When Miss Alicia, in reading records of the helpful relationship of the male progenitors of the Brontes, Jane Austen, Fanny Burney, and Mrs.Browning, was frequently reminded of him, she revealed a perception of which she was not aware.He had combined the virile qualities of all of them.Consequently, brilliancy of conversation at table had not been the attractive habit of the household; "poor dear papa" had confined himself to scathing criticism of the incompetence of females who could not teach their menials to "cook a dinner which was not a disgrace to any decent household." When not virulently aspersing the mutton, he was expressing his opinion of muddle-headed weakness which would permit household bills to mount in a manner which could only bring ruin and disaster upon a minister of the gospel who throughout a protracted career of usefulness had sapped his intellectual manhood in the useless effort to support in silly idleness a family of brainless and maddening fools.Miss Alicia had heard her character, her unsuccessful physical appearance, her mind, and her pitiful efforts at table-talk, described in detail with a choice of adjective and adverb which had broken into terrified fragments every atom of courage and will with which she had been sparsely dowered.

So, not having herself been gifted with conversational powers to begin with, and never having enjoyed the exhibition of such powers in others, her ideals had been high.She was not sure that Mr.Temple Barholm's fluent and cheerful talk could be with exactness termed "conversation." It was perhaps not sufficiently lofty and intellectual, and did not confine itself rigorously to one exalted subject.But how it did raise one's spirits and open up curious vistas! And how good tempered and humorous it was, even though sometimes the humor was a little bewildering! During the whole dinner there never occurred even one of those dreadful pauses in which dead silence fell, and one tried, like a frightened hen flying from side to side of a coop, to think of something to say which would not sound silly, but perhaps might divert attention from dangerous topics.She had often thought it would be so interesting to hear a Spaniard or a native Hindu talk about himself and his own country in English.

Tembarom talked about New York and its people and atmosphere, and he did not know how foreign it all was.He described the streets--Fifth Avenue and Broadway and Sixth Avenue--and the street-cars and the elevated railroad, and the way "fellows" had to "hustle" "to put it over." He spoke of a boarding-house kept by a certain Mrs.Bowse, and a presidential campaign, and the election of a mayor, and a quick-lunch counter, and when President Garfield had been assassinated, and a department store; and the electric lights, and the way he had of making a sort of picture of everything was really instructive and, well, fascinating.She felt as though she had been taken about the city in one of the vehicles the conductor of which described things through a megaphone.

Not that Mr.Temple Barholm suggested a megaphone, whatsoever that might be, but he merely made you feel as if you had seen things.Never had she been so entertained and enlightened.If she had been a beautiful girl, he could not have seemed more as though in amusing her he was also really pleasing himself.He was so very funny sometimes that she could not help laughing in a way which was almost unladylike, because she could not stop, and was obliged to put her handkerchief up to her face and wipe away actual tears of mirth.

Fancy laughing until you cried, and the servants looking on!

Once Burrill himself was obliged to turn hastily away, and twice she heard him severely reprove an overpowered young footman in a rapid undertone.

Tembarom at least felt that the unlifting heaviness of atmosphere which had surrounded him while enjoying the companionship of Mr.

Palford was a thing of the past.

The thrilled interest, the surprise and delight of Miss Alicia would have stimulated a man in a comatose condition, it seemed to him.The little thing just loved every bit of it--she just "eat it up." She asked question after question, sometimes questions which would have made him shout with laughter if he had not been afraid of hurting her feelings.She knew as little of New York as he knew of Temple Barholm, and was, it made him grin to see, allured by it as by some illicit fascination.She did not know what to make of it, and sometimes she was obliged hastily to conceal a fear that it was a sort of Sodom and Gomorrah; but she wanted to hear more about it, and still more.

And she brightened up until she actually did not look frightened, and ate her dinner with an excellent appetite.

"I really never enjoyed a dinner so much in my life," she said when they went into the drawing-room to have their coffee."It was the conversation which made it so delightful.Conversation is such a stimulating thing!"She had almost decided that it was "conversation," or at least a wonderful substitute.

When she said good night to him and went beaming to bed, looking forward immensely to breakfast next morning, he watched her go up the staircase, feeling wonderfully normal and happy.

"Some of these nights, when she's used to me," he said as he stuffed tobacco into his last pipe in the library--"some of these nights I'm darned if I sha'n't catch hold of the sweet, little old thing and hug her in spite of myself.I sha'n't be able to help it." He lit his pipe, and puffed it even excitedly."Lord!" he said, "there's some blame' fool going about the world right now that might have married her.And he'll never know what a break he made when he didn't."