第35章 High Walk and the Ladies(4)

Weguelin's dark eyes;and my sins--for they were twofold--were presently made clear to me by this lady.

"Are such subjects as--as stocks"(she softly cloaked this word in scorn immeasurable)--"are such subjects mentioned in your good society at the North?"I laughed heartily."Everything's mentioned!"The lady paused over my reply."I am afraid you must feel us to be very old-fashioned in,Kings Port,"she then said.

"But I rejoice in it!"

She ignored my not wholly dexterous compliment."And some subjects,"she pursued,"seem to us so grave that if we permit ourselves to speak of them at all we cannot speak of them lightly."No,they couldn't speak of them lightly!Here,then,stood my two sins revealed;everything I had imparted,and also my tone of imparting it,had displeased Mrs.Weguelin St.Michael,not with the thing,but with me.I had transgressed her sound old American code of good manners,a code slightly pompous no doubt,but one in which no familiarity was allowed to breed contempt.To her good taste,there were things in the world which had,apparently,to exist,but which one banished from drawing-room discussion as one conceals from sight the kitchen and outhouses;one dealt with them only when necessity compelled,and never in small-talk;and here had I been,so to speak,small-talking them in that glib,modern,irresponsible cadence with which our brazen age rings and clatters like the beating of triangles and gongs.Not triangles and gongs,but rather strings and flutes,had been the music to which Kings Port society had attuned its measured voice.

I saw it all,and even saw that my own dramatic sense of Mrs.Weguelin's dignity had perversely moved me to be more flippant than I actually fe

"My dear,"said Mrs.Gregory to Mrs.Weguelin,"we must ask him to excuse our provincialism."For the second time I was not wholly dexterous."But I like it so much!"I exclaimed;and both ladies laughed frankly.

Mrs.Gregory brought in a fable."You'll find us all 'country mice'

here."

This time I was happy."At least,then,there'll be no cat!"And this caused us all to make little bows.

But the word "cat"fell into our talk as does a drop of some acid into a chemical solution,instantly changing the whole to an unexpected new color.The unexpected new color was,in this instance,merely what had been latently lurking in the fluid of our consciousness all through and now it suddenly came out.

Mrs.Gregory stared over the parapet at the harbor."I wonder if anybody has visited that steam yacht?""The Hermana?"I said."She's waiting,I believe,for her owner,who is enjoying himself very much on land."It was a strong temptation to add,"enjoying himself with the cat,"but I resisted it.

"Oh!"said Mrs.Gregory."Possibly a friend of yours?""Even his name is unknown to me.But I gather that he may be coming to Kings Port--to attend Mr.John Mayrant's wedding next Wednesday week."I hadn't gathered this;but one is at times driven to improvising.I wished so much to know if Juno was right about the engagement being broken,and I looked hard at the ladies as my words fairly grazed the "cat."This time I expected them to consult each other's expressions,and such,indeed,was their immediate proceeding.

"The Wednesday following,you mean,"Mrs.Weguelin corrected.

"Postponed again?Dear me!"

Mrs.Gregory spoke this time."General Rieppe.Less well again,it seems."It would be like Juno to magnify a delay into a rupture.Then I had a hilarious thought,which I instantly put to the ladies."If the poor Gen-eral were to die completely,would the wedding be postponed completely?""There would not be the slightest chance of that,"Mrs.Gregory declared.

And then she pronounced a sentence that was truly oracular:"She's coming at once to see for herself."To which Mrs.Weguelin added with deeper condemnation than she had so far employed at all:"There is a rumor that she is actually coming in an automobile."My silence upon these two remarks was the silence of great and sudden interest;but it led Mrs.Weguelin St.Michael to do my perceptions a slight injustice,and she had no intention that I should miss the quality of her opinion regarding the vehicle in which Hortense was reported to be travelling.

"Miss Rieppe has the extraordinary taste to come here in an automobile,"said Mrs.Weguelin St.Michael,with deepened severity.

Though I understood quite well,without this emphasizing,that the little lady would,with her unbending traditions,probably think it more re-spectable to approach Kings Port in a wheelbarrow,I was absorbed by the vague but copious import of Mrs.Gregory's announcement.The oracles,moreover,continued.

"But she is undoubtedly very clever to come and see for herself,"was Mrs.Weguelin's next comment.

Mrs.Gregory's face,as she replied to her companion,took on a censorious and superior expression."You'll remember,Julia,that I told Josephine St.Michael it was what they had to expect.""But it was not Josephine,my dear,who at any time approved of taking such a course.It was Eliza's whole doing."It was fairly raining oracles round me,and they quite resembled,for all the help and light they contained,their Delphic predecessors.

"And yet Eliza,"said Mrs.Gregory,"in the face of it,this very morning,repeated her eternal assertion that we shall all see the marriage will not take place.""Eliza,"murmured Mrs.Weguelin,"rates few things more highly than her own judgment."Mrs.Gregory mused."Yet she is often right when she has no right to be right."I could not bear it any longer,and I said,"I heard to-day that Miss Rieppe had broken her engagement.""And where did you hear that nonsense?"asked Mrs.Gregory.

My heart leaped,and I told her where.