Читать книгу The Golden House - Charles Dudley Warner - Страница 12

There were a dozen ladies in the drawing-room when Jack entered, and his first impression was that the scream of conversation would be harder to talk against than a Wagner opera; but he presently got his cup of tea, and found a snug seat in the chimney-corner by Miss Tavish; indeed, they moved to it together, and so got a little out of the babel. Jack thought the girl looked even prettier in her walking-dress than when he saw her at the studio; she had style, there was no doubt about that; and then, while there was no invitation in her manner, one felt that she was a woman to whom one could easily say things, and who was liable at any moment to say things interesting herself.

“Is this your first appearance since last night, Mr. Delancy?”

“Oh no; I've been racing about on errands all day. It is very restful to sit down by a calm person.”

“Well, I never shut my eyes till nine o'clock. I kept seeing that Spanish woman whirl around and contort, and—do you mind my telling you?—I couldn't just help it, I” (leaning forward to Jack) “got up and tried it before the glass. There! Are you shocked?”

“Not so much shocked as excluded,” Jack dared to say. “But do you think—“.

“Yes, I know. There isn't anything that an American girl cannot do. I've made up my mind to try it. You'll see.”

“Will I?”

“No, you won't. Don't flatter yourself. Only girls. I don't want men around.”

“Neither do I,” said Jack, honestly.

Miss Tavish laughed. “You are too forward, Mr. Delancy. Perhaps some time, when we have learned, we will let in a few of you, to look in at the door, fifty dollars a ticket, for some charity. I don't see why dancing isn't just as good an accomplishment as playing the harp in a Greek dress.”

“Nor do I; I'd rather see it. Besides, you've got Scripture warrant for dancing off the heads of people. And then it is such a sweet way of doing a charity. Dancing for the East Side is the best thing I have heard yet.”

“You needn't mock. You won't when you find out what it costs you.”

“What are you two plotting?” asked Mrs. Trafton, coming across to the fireplace.

“Charity,” said Jack, meekly.

“Your wife was here this morning to get me to go and see some of her friends in Hester Street.”

“You went?”

“Not today. It's awfully interesting, but I've been.”

“Edith seems to be devoted to that sort of thing,” remarked Miss Tavish.

“Yes,” said Jack, slowly, “she's got the idea that sympathy is better than money; she says she wants to try to understand other people's lives.”

“Goodness knows, I'd like to understand my own.”

“And were you trying, Mr. Delancy, to persuade Miss Tavish into that sort of charity?”

“Oh dear, no,” said Jack; “I was trying to interest the East End in something, for the benefit of Miss Tavish.”

“You'll find that's one of the most expensive remarks you ever made,” retorted Miss Tavish, rising to go.

“I wish Lily Tavish would marry,” said Mrs. Trafton, watching the girl's slender figure as it passed through the portiere; “she doesn't know what to do with herself.”

Jack shrugged his shoulders. “Yes, she'd be a lovely wife for somebody;” and then he added, as if reminiscently, “if he could afford it. Good-by.”

“That's just a fashion of talking. I never knew a time when so many people afforded to do what they wanted to do. But you men are all alike. Good-by.”

When Jack reached home it was only a little after six o'clock, and as they were not to go out to dine till eight, he had a good hour to rest from the fatigues of the day, and run over the evening papers and dip into the foreign periodicals to catch a topic or two for the dinner-table.

“Yes, sir,” said the maid, “Mrs. Delancy came in an hour ago.”