“You must have had a beautiful ride, father,” said Mrs. Evringham as they seated themselves at table. She spoke in the tone, at once assured and ingratiating, which she always adopted toward him. “I noticed you took an earlier start than usual.”
The speaker had never had the insight to discover that her father-in-law was ungrateful for proofs that any of his long-fixed, solitary habits were now observed by feminine eyes.
“I did take a rather longer ride than usual,” he returned. “Mrs. Forbes, I wish you would speak to the cook about the soup. It has been served cool for the last two days.”
Mrs. Forbes flushed as she stood near his chair in her trim black gown and white apron.
“Yes, sir,” she replied, the flush and quiet words giving little indication of the tumult aroused within her by her employer's criticism. To fail to please Mr. Evringham at his meals was the deepest mortification life held for her.
“I'm sure it tastes very good,” said Mrs. Evringham amiably, “although I like a little more salt than your cook uses.”
“You can reach it I hope,” remarked the host, casting a glance at the dainty solitaire salt and pepper beside his daughter's plate.
“But don't you like it cooked in?” she asked sweetly.
“Not when I want to get it out,” he answered shortly.
“How can mother, how can mother!” thought Eloise helplessly.
“There is decided spring in the air to-day,” said Mrs. Evringham. “I remember of old how charmingly spring comes in the park.”
“You have a good memory,” returned Mr. Evringham dryly.
“Why do you say that?” asked the pretty widow, lifting large, innocent eyes.
“It is some years since you accompanied Lawrence in his calls upon me, I believe.”
“Poor father!” thought Mrs. Evringham, “how unpleasantly blunt he has grown, living here alone!”
“I scarcely realize it,” she returned suavely. “My recollection of the park is always so clear. It is surprising, isn't it, how relatives can live as near together as we in New York and you out here and see one another so seldom! Life in New York,” sighing, “was such a rush for us. Here amid the rustle of the trees it seems to be scarcely the same world. Lawrence often said his only lucid intervals were during the rides he took with Eloise in Central Park. Do you always ride alone, father?”
“Always,” was the prompt rejoinder, while Eloise cast a glance full of appeal at her mother.
The latter continued archly, “If you could see Eloise on a horse you would not blame me for trying to screw up my courage, as I have been doing for days past, to ask you if she might take a canter on Essex Maid in the morning, sometimes, while you are away. Fanshaw assured me that she would be perfectly safe.”
Mr. Evringham's cold eyes stared, and then the enormity of the proposition appeared to move him humorously.
“Which maid did Fanshaw say would be safe?” he inquired, while Eloise glowed with mortification.
“Well, if you think Eloise can't ride, try her some time!” exclaimed the widow gayly. It had been a matter of surprise and afterward of resentment that Mr. Evringham could remain deaf to her hints so long, and she had determined to become frank. “Or else ask Dr. Ballard,” she went on; “he has very kindly provided Eloise with a horse several times, but the child likes a solitary ride, sometimes, as well as you do.”
The steely look returned to the host's eyes. “No one rides the Maid but myself,” he returned coldly.
“I beg you to believe, grandfather, that I don't wish to ride her,” said Eloise, her customary languor of manner gone and her voice hard. “Mother is more ambitious for me than I am for myself. I should be very much obliged if she would allow me to ask favors when I want them.”
Mrs. Forbes's lips were set in a tight line as she filled Mrs. Evringham's glass.
That lady's heart was beating a little fast from vexation, and also from the knowledge that a time of reckoning with her child was coming.
“Oh, very well,” she said airily. “No wonder you are careful of that beautiful creature. I caught Eloise with her arms around the mare's neck the other day, and I couldn't help wishing for a kodak. You feed her with sugar, don't you Eloise?”
“I hope not, I'm sure!” exclaimed Mr. Evringham sternly.
“I'll not do it again, grandfather,” said the girl, her very ears burning.
Mrs. Evringham sighed and gave one Parthian shot. “The poor child does love horses so,” she murmured softly.
The host scowled and fidgeted in his chair with a brusque gesture to Mrs. Forbes to remove the course.
“Harry has turned up again,” he remarked, to change the subject.
“Really?” returned his daughter-in-law languidly. “For how long I wonder?”
“He thinks it is permanent.”
“He is still in Chicago?”
“Yes, for a day or two. He and his wife sail for Europe immediately.”
“Indeed!” with a greater show of interest. Then, curiously, “Are you sending them, father?”
“Scarcely! They are going on business.”
“Oh,” relapsing into indifference. “They have a child, I believe.”
“Yes, a girl. I should think perhaps you might have remembered it.”
“I hardly see why, if Harry didn't—a fact he plainly showed by deserting the poor creature.” The insolence of the speaker's tone was scarcely veiled. Her extreme disapproval of her father-in-law sometimes welled to the surface of her suave manner.
Mr. Evringham's thoughts had fled to Chicago. “Harry proposed leaving the girl here while they are gone,” he said.
Mrs. Evringham straightened in her chair and her attention concentrated. “With you? What assurance! How like Harry!” she exclaimed.
The words were precisely those which her host had been saying to himself; but proceeding from her lips they had a strange effect upon him.
“You find it so?” he asked. The clearer the proposition became to Mrs. Evringham's consciousness the more she resented it. To have the child in the house not only would menace her ease and comfort, but meant a possibility that the grandfather might take an interest in Harry's daughter which would disturb Eloise's chances.
“Of course it does. I call it simply presumptuous,” she declared with emphasis.
“After all, Harry has some rights,” rejoined Mr. Evringham slowly.
“His wife is a dressmaker,” went on the other. “I had it directly from a Chicago friend. Harry has scarcely been with the child since she was born. And to saddle a little stranger like that on you! Now Eloise and her father were inseparable.”
There was an ominous glitter in Mr. Evringham's eyes. “Eloise's father!” he returned slowly. “I did not know that she remembered him.”
The hurt of his tone and words sank deep into the heart of the girl, but she looked up courageously.
“Your son was my father in every best sense,” she said. “We were inseparable. You must have known it.”
“You appeared to be separable