I
THE house was haunted, long before evening. Shadows slipped
down the walls and waited behind every chair.
Did that door move?
No. She wouldn't go to the Jolly Seventeen. She hadn't
energy enough to caper before them, to smile blandly at
Juanita's rudeness. Not today. But she did want a party.
Now! If some one would come in this afternoon, some one
who liked her—Vida or Mrs. Sam Clark or old Mrs. Champ
Perry or gentle Mrs. Dr. Westlake. Or Guy Pollock! She'd
telephone—
No. That wouldn't be it. They must come of themselves.
Perhaps they would.
Why not?
She'd have tea ready, anyway. If they came—splendid.
If not—what did she care? She wasn't going to yield to the
village and let down; she was going to keep up a belief in the
rite of tea, to which she had always looked forward as the
symbol of a leisurely fine existence. And it would be just
as much fun, even if it was so babyish, to have tea by herself
and pretend that she was entertaining clever men. It
would!
She turned the shining thought into action. She bustled to
the kitchen, stoked the wood-range, sang Schumann while she
boiled the kettle, warmed up raisin cookies on a newspaper
spread on the rack in the oven. She scampered up-stairs to
bring down her filmiest tea-cloth. She arranged a silver tray.
She proudly carried it into the living-room and set it on the
long cherrywood table, pushing aside a hoop of embroidery,
a volume of Conrad from the library, copies of the Saturday
Evening Post, the Literary Digest, and Kennicott's National
Geographic Magazine.
She moved the tray back and forth and regarded the effect.
She shook her head. She busily unfolded the sewing-table
set it in the bay-window, patted the tea-cloth to smoothness,
moved the tray. "Some time I'll have a mahogany tea-table,"
she said happily.
She had brought in two cups, two plates. For herself, a
straight chair, but for the guest the big wing-chair, which she
pantingly tugged to the table.
She had finished all the preparations she could think of. She
sat and waited. She listened for the door-bell, the telephone.
Her eagerness was stilled. Her hands drooped.
Surely Vida Sherwin would hear the summons.
She glanced through the bay-window. Snow was sifting over
the ridge of the Howland house like sprays of water from a
hose. The wide yards across the street were gray with moving
eddies. The black trees shivered. The roadway was gashed
with ruts of ice.
She looked at the extra cup and plate. She looked at
the wing-chair. It was so empty.
The tea was cold in the pot. With wearily dipping fingertip
she tested it. Yes. Quite cold. She couldn't wait any
longer.
The cup across from her was icily clean, glisteningly empty.
Simply absurd to wait. She poured her own cup of tea. She
sat and stared at it. What was it she was going to do now?
Oh yes; how idiotic; take a lump of sugar.
She didn't want the beastly tea.
She was springing up. She was on the couch, sobbing.