Three o'clock that afternoon found the Harleys still in Martin's house, with Mrs.Harley fidgetting to get George out for a walk in order that she might enjoy an intimate, mother-talk with Joan, and Joan deliberately using all her gifts to keep him there in order to avoid it.
Lunch had been a simple enough affair as lunches go, lifted above the ordinary ruck of such meals by the 1906 Chateau Latour and the Courvoisier Cognac from the cellar carefully stocked by Martin's father.From the psychological side of it, however, nothing could well have been more complicated.George had not forgotten his reception by the Ludlows that day of his ever-to-be-remembered visit of inspection--the cold, satirical eyes of Grandmother, the freezing courtesy of Grandfather, and the silent, eloquent resentment of the girl who saw herself on the verge of desertion by the one person who made life worth living in intermittent spots.He was nervous and overanxious to appear to advantage.The young thoroughbred at the head of the table who had given him a swift all-embracing look, an enigmatical smile and a light laughing question as to whether he would like to be called "Father, papa, Uncle George or what" awed him.He couldn't help feeling like a clumsy piece of modern pottery in the presence of an exquisite specimen of porcelain.His hands and feet multiplied themselves, and his vocabulary seemed to contain no more than a dozen slang phrases.He was conscious of the fact that his collar was too high and his clothes a little too bold in pattern, and he was definitely certain for the first time in his life, that he had not yet discovered a barber who knew how to cut hair.
Overeager to emphasize her realization of the change in her relationship to Joan, overanxious to let it be seen at once that she was merely an affectionate and interested visitor and not a mother with a budget of suggestions and corrections and rearrangements, Mrs.Harley added to the complication.Usually the most natural woman in the world with a soft infectious laugh, a rather shrewd humor and a neat gift of comment, she assumed a metallic artificiality that distressed herself and surprised Joan.She babbled about absolutely nothing by the yard, talked over George's halting but gallant attempts to make things easy like any Clubwoman, and in an ultra-scrupulous endeavor to treat Joan as if she were a woman of the world, long emancipated from maternal apron strings, said things to her, inane, insincere things, that she would not have said to a complete stranger on the veranda of a summer hotel or the sun deck of a transatlantic liner.She hated herself and was terrified.
For two reasons this unexpected lunch was an ordeal so far as Joan was concerned.She remembered how antagonistic she had been to Harley under the first rough shock of her mother's startling and what then had appeared to be disloyal aberration, and wanted to make up for it to the big, simple, uncomfortable man who was so obviously in love.Also she was still all alone in the mental chaos into which everything that had happened last night had conspired to plunge her and was trying, with every atom of courage that she possessed, to hide the fact from her mother's quick solicitous eyes.SHE of all people must not know that Martin had gone away or find the loose end of her married life!
It was one of those painful hours that crop up from time to time in life and seem to leave a little scratch upon the soul.
But when quarter past three came Mrs.Harley pulled herself together.She had already dropped hints of every known and well-recognized kind to George, without success.She had even invented appointments for him at the dentist's and the tailor's.But George was basking in Joan's favor and was too dazzled to be able to catch and concentrate upon his wife's insinuations as to things and people that didn't exist.And Joan held him with her smile and led him from one anecdote to another.Finally, with no one realized how supreme an effort, Mrs.Harley came to the point.As a rule she never came to points.
"Geordie," she said, seizing a pause, "you may run along now, dear, and take a walk.It will do you good to get a little exercise before dinner.I want to be alone with Joan for a while."And before Joan could swing the conversation off at a tangent the faithful and obedient St.Bernard was on his feet, ready and willing to ramble whichever way he was told to go.With unconscious dignity and a guilelessness utteriy unknown to drawing-rooms he bent over Joan's reluctant hand and said, "Thank you for being so kind to me,"laid a hearty kiss on his wife's cheek and went.
"And now, darling," said Mrs.Harley, settling into her chair with an air of natural triumph, "tell me where Martin is and how long he's going to be away and all about everything."These were precisely the questions that Joan had worked so hard and skilfully to dodge."Well, first of all, Mummy," she said, with filial artfulness, "you must come and see the house."And Mrs.Harley, who had been consumed with the usual feminine curiosity to examine every corner and cranny of it, rose with alacrity."What I've already seen is all charming," she said."Iknew Martin's father, you know.He spent a great deal of time at his house near your grandfather's, and was nearly always in the saddle.
He was not a bit like one's idea of a horsey man.He was, in fact, a gentleman who was fond of horses.There is a world of difference.He had a most delightful smile and was the only man I ever met, except your grandfather, who could drink too much wine without showing it.
