第15章

The next day, after another forenoon's shopping with her friends, Mrs. March announced: "Well, now, it has all come out, Basil, and Iwonder you didn't get the secret at once from your Mr. Deering.

Have you been supposing that Miss Gage was a poor girl whom the Deerings had done the favour of bringing with them?""Why, what of it?" I asked provisionally.

"She is very well off. Her father is not only the president, as they call it, of the village, but he's the president of the bank.""Yes; I told you that Deering told me so--""But he is very queer. He has kept her very close from the other young people, and Mrs. Deering is the only girl friend she's ever had, and she's grown up without having been anywhere without him.

They had to plead with him to let her come with them--or Mrs.

Deering had,--but when he once consented, he consented handsomely.

He gave her a lot of money, and told them he wanted her to have the best time that money could buy; and of course you can understand how such a man would think that money would buy a good time anywhere.

But the Deerings didn't know how to go about it. She confessed as much when we were talking the girl over. I could see that she stood in awe of her somehow from the beginning, and that she felt more than the usual responsibility for her. That was the reason she was so eager to get her husband off home; as long as he was with them she would have to work everything through him, and that would be double labour, because he is so hopelessly villaginous, don't you know, that he never could rise to the conception of anything else.

He took them to a cheap, second-class hotel, and he was afraid to go with them anywhere because he never was sure that it was the right thing to do; and he was too proud to ask, and they had to keep prodding him all the time.""That's delightful!"

"Oh, I dare say you think so; but if you knew how it wounded a woman's self-respect you would feel differently; or you wouldn't, rather. But now, thank goodness; they've got him off their hands, and they can begin to breathe freely. That is, Mrs. Deering could, if she hadn't her heart in her mouth all the time, wondering what she can do for the girl, and bullying herself with the notion that she is to blame if she doesn't have a good time. You can understand just how it was with them always. Mrs. Deering is one of those meek little things that a great, splendid, lonely creature like Miss Gage would take to in a small place, and perfectly crush under the weight of her confidence; and she would want to make her husband live up to her ideal of the girl, and would be miserable because he wouldn't or couldn't.""I believe the good Deering didn't even think her handsome.""That's it. And he thought anything that was good enough for his wife was good enough for Miss Gage, and he'd be stubborn about doing things on her account, even to please his wife.""Such conduct is imaginable of the good Deering. I don't think he liked her.""Nor she him. Mrs. Deering helplessly hinted as much. She said he didn't like to have her worrying so much about Miss Gage's not having a good time, and she couldn't make him feel as she did about it, and she was half glad for his own sake that he had to go home.""Did she say that?"

"Not exactly; but you could see that she meant it. Do you think it would do for them to change from their hotel, and go to the Grand Union or the States or Congress Hall?""Have you been putting them up to that, Isabel?""I knew you would suspect me, and I wouldn't have asked for your opinion if I had cared anything for it, really. What would be the harm of their doing it?""None whatever, if you really want my worthless opinion. But what could they do there?""They could see something if they couldn't do anything, and as soon as Miss Gage has got her new gowns I'm going to tell them you thought they could do it. It was their own idea, at any rate."''Miss Gage's?"

"Mrs. Deering's. She has the courage of a--I don't know what. She sees that it's a desperate case, and she wouldn't stop at anything.""Now that her husband has gone home."

"Well, which hotel shall they go to?"

"Oh, that requires reflection."

"Very well, then, when you've reflected I want you to go to the hotel you've chosen, and introduce yourself to the clerk, and tell him your wife has two friends coming, and you want something very pleasant for them. Tell him all about yourself and Every Other Week.""He'll think I want them deadheaded."

"No matter, if your conscience is clear; and don't be so shamefully modest as you always are, but speak up boldly. Now, will you?

Promise me you will!"

"I will try, as the good little boy says. But, Isabel, we don't know these people except from their own account.""And that is quite enough."