“Oh, don’t be absurd!” Mrs. Bates’ plump little hands fluttered in protest and then fell quietly to rest in her lap. “You men are so tactless! Now, Mrs. Peyton or I could find out all about it, without any one knowing we were making inquiry.”
“Why don’t you, then?” asked Waring, and Mrs. Peyton gave a pleased smile as the guest bracketed their names.
“I will, if you say so.” Emily spoke gravely. “That is what I wanted to ask you. I didn’t like to take up the matter with any one unless you directly approved.”
“Oh, go ahead, – I see no harm in it.”
“But, Doctor Waring,” put in Lockwood, “is it wise? I fear that if Mrs. Bates takes up this matter she may get in deeper than she means or expects to, and – well, you can’t tell what might turn up.”
“That’s so, Emily. As matters stand, you’d best be careful.”
“Oh, John, how vacillating you are! First, you say go ahead, and then you say stop! I don’t mind your changing your opinions, but I do resent your paying so little attention to the matter. You toss it aside without thought.”
“Doctor Waring thinks very quickly,” said Mrs. Peyton, and Emily gave her a slight stare.
It was hard for the housekeeper to realize that she must inevitably lose her place in his household, and the thought made her a little assertive while she still had opportunity.
“Yes, I know it,” was the reply Emily gave, and went on, addressing herself to the two men.
“Persuade him, Mr. Lockwood. Not of his duty, he never misapprehends that, but of the necessity of looking on this matter as a duty.”
“What a pleader you are, Emily,” and Waring gave her an admiring bow; “I am almost persuaded that my very life is in danger!”
“Oh, you won’t be good!” The blue eyes twinkled but the rosy little mouth took on a mutinous pout. “Well, I warn you, if you don’t look out for yourself, I’m going to look out for you! And that, as Mr. Lockwood hints, may get you into trouble!”
“What a contradictory little person it is! In an effort to get me out of trouble, you admit you will probably get me into trouble. Well, well, if this is during our betrothal days, what will you do after we are married?”
“Oh, then you’ll obey me implicitly,” and the expressive hands indicated with a wide sweep, total subjection.
“You’ll find him not absolutely easy to manage,” Mrs. Peyton declared, and though Emily Bates said no word, she gave a look of superior managing power that brought the housekeeper’s thin lips together in a resentful straight line.
This byplay was unnoticed by large-minded John Waring, but it amused Lockwood, who was an observer of human nature.
Unostentatiously, he watched Mrs. Peyton, as she turned her attention to the tea tray, and noted the air of importance with which she continued her duties as hostess.
“Bring hot toast, Ito,” she said to the well-trained and deferential Japanese. “And a few more lemon slices, – I see another guest coming.”
She smiled out through the window, and a moment later a breezy young chap came into the room.
“Hello, folkses,” he cried; “Hello, Aunt Emily.”
He gave Mrs. Bates an audible kiss on her pretty cheek and bowed with boyish good humor to Mrs. Peyton.
“How do you do, Uncle Doctor?” and “How goes it, Lock?” he went on, as he threw himself, a little sprawlingly into an easy chair. “And here’s the fair Helen of Troy.”
He jumped up as Helen Peyton came into the room. “Why, Pinky,” she said, “when did you come?”
“Just now, my girl, as you noted from your oriel lattice, – and came running down to bask in the sunshine of my smiles.”
“Behave yourself, Pinky,” admonished his aunt, as she noted Helen’s quick blush and realized the saucy boy had told the truth.
Pinckney Payne, college freshman, and nephew of Emily Bates, was very fond of Doctor Waring, his English teacher, and as also fond, in his boyish way, of his aunt. But he was no respecter of authority, and, now that his aunt was to be the wife of his favorite professor, also the President-elect of the college, he assumed an absolute familiarity with the whole household.
His nickname was not only an abbreviation, but was descriptive of his exuberant health and invariably red cheeks. For the rest, he was just a rollicking, care-free boy, ring leader in college fun, often punished, but bobbing up serenely again, ready for more mischief.
Helen Peyton adored the irrepressible Pinky, and though he liked her, it was no more than he felt for many others and not so much as he had for a few.
“Tea, Mrs. Peyton? Oh, yes, indeed, thank you. Yes, two lemon and three sugar. And toasts, – and cakies, – oh, what good ones! What a tuck! Alma Mater doesn’t feed us like this! I say, Aunt Emily, after you are married, may I come to tea every day? And bring the fellows?”
“I’ll answer that, – you may,” said John Waring.
“And I’ll revise the answer, – you may, with reservations,” Mrs. Bates supplemented. “Now, Pinky, you’re a dear and a sweet, but you can’t annex this house and all its affairs, just because it’s going to be my home.”
“Don’t want to, Auntie. I only want you to annex me. You’ll keep the same cook we have at present, won’t you?”
He looked solicitously at her, over a large slice of toast and jam he was devouring.
“Maybe and maybe not,” Mrs. Peyton spoke up. “Cooks are not always anxious to be kept.”
“At any rate, we’ll have a cook, Pinky, of some sort,” his aunt assured him, and the boy turned to tease Helen Peyton, who was quite willing to be teased.
“I saw your beau today, Helen,” he said.
“Which one?” she asked placidly.
“Is there a crowd? Well, I mean the Tyler person. Him as hangs out at Old Salt’s. And, by the way, Uncle President, – yes, I am a bit previous on both counts, but you’ll soon have the honor of being both President and my uncle, – by the way, I say, Bob Tyler says there’s something in the wind.”
“A straw to show which way it blows, perhaps,” Waring said.
“Perhaps, sir. But it’s blowing. Tyler says there’s a movement on foot to make things hot for you if you take the Presidential chair with your present intentions.”
“My intentions?”
“Yes, sir; about athletics, and sports in general.”
“And what are my so-called intentions?”
“They say, you mean to cut out sport – ”
“Oh, Pinckney, you know better than that!”
“Well, Doctor Waring, some seem to think that’s what you have in mind. If you’d declare your intentions now, – ”
“Look here, Pinky, don’t you think I’ve enough on my mind in the matter of marrying your aunt, without bringing in other matters till that’s settled.”
“Going to be married soon, Uncle Doc?”
“We are. As soon as your aunt will select a pleasant day for the ceremony. Then, that attended to, I can devote my mind and energies to this other subject. And meanwhile, my boy, if you hear talk about it, don’t make any assertions, – rather, try to hush up the subject.”
“I see, – I see, – and I will, Doctor Waring. You don’t want to bother with those things till you’re a settled down married man! I know just how you feel about it. Important business, this getting married, – I daresay, sir.”
“It