University of Virginia Library

VII.

The exultant Colonel swung himself lightly down
from his seat. "I've brought Mr. Corey with me,"
he nonchalantly explained.

Mrs. Lapham made their guest welcome, and the
Colonel showed him to his room, briefly assuring himself
that there was nothing wanting there. Then
he went to wash his own hands, carelessly ignoring
the eagerness with which his wife pursued him to
their chamber.

"What gave Irene a headache?" he asked,
making himself a fine lather for his hairy paws.

"Never you mind Irene," promptly retorted his
wife. "How came he to come? Did you press
him? If you did, I'll never forgive you, Silas!"

The Colonel laughed, and his wife shook him by
the shoulder to make him laugh lower. "'Sh!"
she whispered. "Do you want him to hear every
thing? Did you urge him?"

The Colonel laughed the more. He was going to
get all the good out of this. "No, I didn't urge him.
Seemed to want to come."

"I don't believe it. Where did you meet him?"

"At the office."

"What office?"

"Mine."

"Nonsense! What was he doing there?"

"Oh, nothing much."

"What did he come for?"

"Come for? Oh! he said he wanted to go into
the mineral paint business."

Mrs. Lapham dropped into a chair, and watched
his bulk shaken with smothered laughter. "Silas
Lapham," she gasped, "if you try to get off any
more of those things on me—"

The Colonel applied himself to the towel. "Had
a notion he could work it in South America. I don't
know what he's up to."

"Never mind!" cried his wife. "I'll get even
with you yet."

"So I told him he had better come down and
talk it over," continued the Colonel, in well-affected
simplicity. "I knew he wouldn't touch it with a
ten-foot pole."

"Go on!" threatened Mrs. Lapham.

"Right thing to do, wa'n't it?"

A tap was heard at the door, and Mrs. Lapham
answered it. A maid announced supper. "Very
well," she said, "come to tea now. But I'll make
you pay for this, Silas."

Penelope had gone to her sister's room as soon as
she entered the house.

"Is your head any better, 'Rene?" she asked.

"Yes, a little," came a voice from the pillows.
"But I shall not come to tea. I don't want anything.

If I keep still, I shall be all right by morning."

"Well, I'm sorry," said the elder sister. "He's
come down with father."

"He hasn't! Who?" cried Irene, starting up in
simultaneous denial and demand.

"Oh, well, if you say he hasn't, what's the use of
my telling you who?"

"Oh, how can you treat me so!" moaned the
sufferer. "What do you mean, Pen?"

"I guess I'd better not tell you," said Penelope,
watching her like a cat playing with a mouse. "If
you're not coming to tea, it would just excite you
for nothing."

The mouse moaned and writhed upon the bed.

"Oh, I wouldn't treat you so!"

The cat seated herself across the room, and asked
quietly—

"Well, what could you do if it was Mr. Corey?
You couldn't come to tea, you say. But he'll excuse
you. I've told him you had a headache. Why, of
course you can't come! It would be too barefaced.
But you needn't be troubled, Irene; I'll do my best
to make the time pass pleasantly for him." Here
the cat gave a low titter, and the mouse girded itself
up with a momentary courage and self-respect.

"I should think you would be ashamed to come
here and tease me so."

"I don't see why you shouldn't believe me,"
argued Penelope. "Why shouldn't he come down
with father, if father asked him? and he'd be sure

to if he thought of it. I don't see any p'ints about
that frog that's any better than any other frog."

The sense of her sister's helplessness was too much
for the tease; she broke down in a fit of smothered
laughter, which convinced her victim that it was
nothing but an ill-timed joke.

"Well, Pen, I wouldn't use you so," she whimpered.

Penelope threw herself on the bed beside her.

"Oh, poor Irene! He is here. It's a solemn
fact." And she caressed and soothed her sister,
while she choked with laughter. "You must get
up and come out. I don't know what brought him
here, but here he is."

"It's too late now," said Irene desolately. Then
she added, with a wilder despair: "What a fool I
was to take that walk!"

"Well," coaxed her sister, "come out and get some
tea. The tea will do you good."

"No, no; I can't come. But send me a cup
here."

"Yes, and then perhaps you can see him later in
the evening."

"I shall not see him at all."

An hour after Penelope came back to her sister's
room and found her before her glass. "You might
as well have kept still, and been well by morning,
'Rene," she said. "As soon as we were done father
said, `Well, Mr. Corey and I have got to talk over
a little matter of business, and we'll excuse you,
ladies.' He looked at mother in a way that I guess

was pretty hard to bear. 'Rene, you ought to have
heard the Colonel swelling at supper. It would
have made you feel that all he said the other day
was nothing."

Mrs. Lapham suddenly opened the door.

"Now, see here, Pen," she said, as she closed it
behind her, "I've had just as much as I can stand
from your father, and if you don't tell me this instant
what it all means—"

She left the consequences to imagination, and
Penelope replied with her mock soberness—

"Well, the Colonel does seem to be on his high
horse, ma'am. But you mustn't ask me what his
business with Mr. Corey is, for I don't know. All
that I know is that I met them at the landing, and
that they conversed all the way down—on literary
topics."

"Nonsense! What do you think it is?"

"Well, if you want my candid opinion, I think
this talk about business is nothing but a blind. It
seems a pity Irene shouldn't have been up to receive
him," she added.

Irene cast a mute look of imploring at her mother,
who was too much preoccupied to afford her the
protection it asked.

"Your father said he wanted to go into the business
with him."

Irene's look changed to a stare of astonishment
and mystification, but Penelope preserved her imperturbability.

"Well, it's a lucrative business, I believe."

"Well, I don't believe a word of it!" cried Mrs.
Lapham. "And so I told your father."

"Did it seem to convince him?" inquired Penelope.

Her mother did not reply. "I know one thing,'
she said. "He's got to tell me every word, or
there'll be no sleep for him this night."

"Well, ma'am," said Penelope, breaking down in
one of her queer laughs, "I shouldn't be a bit surprised
if you were right."

"Go on and dress, Irene," ordered her mother,
"and then you and Pen come out into the parlour.
They can have just two hours for business, and
then we must all be there to receive him. You
haven't got headache enough to hurt you."

"Oh, it's all gone now," said the girl.

At the end of the limit she had given the Colonel,
Mrs. Lapham looked into the dining-room, which
she found blue with his smoke.

"I think you gentlemen will find the parlour
pleasanter now, and we can give it up to you."

"Oh no, you needn't," said her husband.
"We've got about through." Corey was already
standing, and Lapham rose too. "I guess we can
join the ladies now. We can leave that little point
till to-morrow."

Both of the young ladies were in the parlour
when Corey entered with their father, and both
were frankly indifferent to the few books and the
many newspapers scattered about on the table
where the large lamp was placed. But after Corey

had greeted Irene he glanced at the novel under his
eye, and said, in the dearth that sometimes befalls
people at such times: "I see you're reading
Middlemarch. Do you like George Eliot?"

"Who?" asked the girl.

Penelope interposed. "I don't believe Irene's
read it yet. I've just got it out of the library; I
heard so much talk about it. I wish she would let
you find out a little about the people for yourself,"
she added. But here her father struck in—

"I can't get the time for books. It's as much as
I can do to keep up with the newspapers; and
when night comes, I'm tired, and I'd rather go out
to the theatre, or a lecture, if they've got a good
stereopticon to give you views of the places. But
I guess we all like a play better than 'most anything
else. I want something that'll make me laugh. I
don't believe in tragedy. I think there's enough of
that in real life without putting it on the stage.
Seen `Joshua Whitcomb'?"

The whole family joined in the discussion, and it
appeared that they all had their opinions of the
plays and actors. Mrs. Lapham brought the talk
back to literature. "I guess Penelope does most of
our reading."

"Now, mother, you're not going to put it all on
me!" said the girl, in comic protest.

Her mother laughed, and then added, with a
sigh: "I used to like to get hold of a good book
when I was a girl; but we weren't allowed to read
many novels in those days. My mother called

them all lies. And I guess she wasn't so very far
wrong about some of them."

"They're certainly fictions," said Corey, smiling.

"Well, we do buy a good many books, first and
last," said the Colonel, who probably had in mind
the costly volumes which they presented to one
another on birthdays and holidays. "But I get
about all the reading I want in the newspapers.
And when the girls want a novel, I tell 'em to get
it out of the library. That's what the library's for.
Phew!" he panted, blowing away the whole unprofitable
subject. "How close you women-folks like
to keep a room! You go down to the sea-side or
up to the mountains for a change of air, and then
you cork yourselves into a room so tight you don't
have any air at all. Here! You girls get on your
bonnets, and go and show Mr. Corey the view of the
hotels from the rocks."

Corey said that he should be delighted. The
girls exchanged looks with each other, and then
with their mother. Irene curved her pretty chin in
comment upon her father's incorrigibility, and
Penelope made a droll mouth, but the Colonel
remained serenely content with his finesse. "I got
'em out of the way," he said, as soon as they were
gone, and before his wife had time to fall upon him,
"because I've got through my talk with him, and
now I want to talk with you. It's just as I said,
Persis; he wants to go into the business with me."

"It's lucky for you," said his wife, meaning that
now he would not be made to suffer for attempting

to hoax her. But she was too intensely interested
to pursue that matter further. "What in the world
do you suppose he means by it?"

"Well, I should judge by his talk that he had
been trying a good many different things since he
left college, and he hain't found just the thing he
likes—or the thing that likes him. It ain't so easy.
And now he's got an idea that he can take hold of
the paint and push it in other countries—push it in
Mexico and push it in South America. He's a
splendid Spanish scholar,"—this was Lapham's
version of Corey's modest claim to a smattering of
the language,—"and he's been among the natives
enough to know their ways. And he believes in
the paint," added the Colonel.

"I guess he believes in something else besides the
paint," said Mrs. Lapham.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, Silas Lapham, if you can't see now that
he's after Irene, I don't know what ever can open
your eyes. That's all."

The Colonel pretended to give the idea silent consideration,
as if it had not occurred to him before.
"Well, then, all I've got to say is, that he's going
a good way round. I don't say you're wrong, but
if it's Irene, I don't see why he should want to go
off to South America to get her. And that's what
he proposes to do. I guess there's some paint about
it too, Persis. He says he believes in it,"—the
Colonel devoutly lowered his voice,—"and he's
willing to take the agency on his own account down

there, and run it for a commission on what he can
sell."

"Of course! He isn't going to take hold of it
any way so as to feel beholden to you. He's got
too much pride for that."

"He ain't going to take hold of it at all, if he
don't mean paint in the first place and Irene afterward.
I don't object to him, as I know, either way,
but the two things won't mix; and I don't propose
he shall pull the wool over my eyes—or anybody
else. But, as far as heard from, up to date, he
means paint first, last, and all the time. At any
rate, I'm going to take him on that basis. He's got
some pretty good ideas about it, and he's been
stirred up by this talk, just now, about getting our
manufactures into the foreign markets. There's an
overstock in everything, and we've got to get rid of
it, or we've got to shut down till the home demand
begins again. We've had two or three such flurries
before now, and they didn't amount to much. They
say we can't extend our commerce under the high
tariff system we've got now, because there ain't any
sort of reciprocity on our side,—we want to have
the other fellows show all the reciprocity,—and the
English have got the advantage of us every time. I
don't know whether it's so or not; but I don't see
why it should apply to my paint. Anyway, he
wants to try it, and I've about made up my mind to
let him. Of course I ain't going to let him take all
the risk. I believe in the paint too, and I shall pay
his expenses anyway."

"So you want another partner after all?" Mrs.
Lapham could not forbear saying.

"Yes, if that's your idea of a partner. It isn't
mine," returned her husband dryly.

"Well, if you've made up your mind, Si, I suppose
you're ready for advice," said Mrs. Lapham.

The Colonel enjoyed this. "Yes, I am. What
have you got to say against it?"

"I don't know as I've got anything. I'm satisfied
if you are."

"Well?"

"When is he going to start for South America?"

"I shall take him into the office a while. He'll
get off some time in the winter. But he's got to
know the business first."

"Oh, indeed! Are you going to take him to
board in the family?"

"What are you after, Persis?"

"Oh, nothing! I presume he will feel free to
visit in the family, even if he don't board with us."

"I presume he will."

"And if he don't use his privileges, do you think
he'll be a fit person to manage your paint in South
America?"

The Colonel reddened consciously. "I'm not
taking him on that basis."

"Oh yes, you are! You may pretend you ain't
to yourself, but you mustn't pretend so to me. Because
I know you."

The Colonel laughed. "Pshaw!" he said.

Mrs. Lapham continued: "I don't see any harm

in hoping that he'll take a fancy to her. But if you
really think it won't do to mix the two things, I
advise you not to take Mr. Corey into the business.
It will do all very well if he does take a fancy to
her; but if he don't, you know how you'll feel
about it. And I know you well enough, Silas, to
know that you can't do him justice if that happens.
And I don't think it's right you should take this
step unless you're pretty sure. I can see that you've
set your heart on this thing—"

"I haven't set my heart on it at all," protested
Lapham.

"And if you can't bring it about, you're going to
feel unhappy over it," pursued his wife, regardless
of his protest.

"Oh, very well," he said. "If you know more
about what's in my mind than I do, there's no use
arguing, as I can see."

He got up, to carry off his consciousness, and
sauntered out of the door on to his piazza. He
could see the young people down on the rocks, and
his heart swelled in his breast. He had always said
that he did not care what a man's family was, but
the presence of young Corey as an applicant to him
for employment, as his guest, as the possible suitor
of his daughter, was one of the sweetest flavours
that he had yet tasted in his success. He knew who
the Coreys were very well, and, in his simple, brutal
way, he had long hated their name as a symbol of
splendour which, unless he should live to see at
least three generations of his descendants gilded

with mineral paint, he could not hope to realise in
his own. He was acquainted in a business way with
the tradition of old Phillips Corey, and he had heard
a great many things about the Corey who had spent
his youth abroad and his father's money everywhere,
and done nothing but say smart things. Lapham
could not see the smartness of some of them which
had been repeated to him. Once he had encountered
the fellow, and it seemed to Lapham that the
tall, slim, white-moustached man, with the slight
stoop, was everything that was offensively aristocratic.
He had bristled up aggressively at the
name when his wife told how she had made the
acquaintance of the fellow's family the summer
before, and he had treated the notion of young
Corey's caring for Irene with the contempt which
such a ridiculous superstition deserved. He had
made up his mind about young Corey beforehand;
yet when he met him he felt an instant liking for
him, which he frankly acknowledged, and he had
begun to assume the burden of his wife's superstition,
of which she seemed now ready to accuse him
of being the inventor.

Nothing had moved his thick imagination like
this day's events since the girl who taught him
spelling and grammar in the school at Lumberville
had said she would have him for her husband.

The dark figures, stationary on the rocks, began
to move, and he could see that they were coming
toward the house. He went indoors, so as not to
appear to have been watching them.