Chapter Nine

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_ "Well, what do you think about it, father?" Olive Keltridge queried, as she tapped the table with the corner of the note she was holding in her hand. The tapping, however, was no indication of any filial impatience. It was merely to remind her parent that something was still expected of him, before he drifted off again into an absent-minded study of the medical journal clutched between his fists. Olive Keltridge would have been the last person in the world to dissent from the general adoration of her father. He was all in all to her, as she to him. None the less, she was driven to admit at times that it was a trifle difficult to keep him up to his social duties. Olive's mother had died, six years before. The girl had come out of school to take upon her slim young shoulders the management of her father's house. Moreover, in that aged town where, aside from a few score new professors and their callow young assistants, everybody's grandparents had played dolls and tin soldiers together, Dr. Keltridge's absent-minded fashion of failing to provide his daughter with a feminine chaperon had caused no comment whatsoever. Everybody that one met out at dinner knew all about everybody else for several generations. Either they were indigenous, and born knowing; or else, imported and properly accredited, they took measures to inform themselves at the earliest possible opportunity. All the other people, whom one saw in church and in the street cars, did not count at all. For that reason, no one appeared to find it at all strange that, from the day she put on long frocks, Olive Keltridge should preside, unchaperoned, at her father's table, should receive her father's guests without other protection from their wiles than that accorded by his presence. To be sure, that presence was not invariably dependable. On more than one occasion, Olive had been obliged to delay the serving of the dinner and excuse herself from her waiting guests, while she went in search of her father in his laboratory. The guests, though, as a rule, had known Doctor Eustace Keltridge even longer than his daughter had had the chance to do. They forgot their hunger completely in their amused curiosity as to the condition in which their host would put in his appearance. Olive Keltridge was a born hostess. She had been prompt to grasp the fact that guests should be amused as well as fed, prompt to realize that a family skeleton can easily be converted to a family Jack-in-the-box, if only he can be snatched from the closet and manipulated with a little tact. Upon the first occasion of her father's failure to line up beside her in season to receive his guests, she had gone in search of him a little petulantly, had reappeared beside him, hot-cheeked and a trifle sulky. That one experience had been the last one of its kind, however. Olive had lain awake, that night, to ponder on the interval between the time of her discovering her sire, his hair rampant, his necktie shockingly awry and his sleeves rolled up, messing contentedly among his pots and pans of cultures and totally oblivious of his waiting guests, and the much later time when she had literally driven him, irreproachably clad and beaming delightedly, into the drawing-room ahead of her. She had thought it all over, all, from the quality of the delayed dinner down to the things that the guests were likely to be saying in her absence. Then, young as she was, she took her resolution. After that, she would catch her father suddenly, and bring him back, red-handed. A man like Doctor Keltridge ought not to be reduced to the conventional dead level of his fellow townsmen; it would be a waste of rare material. Rather, as the phrase is, he should be featured. And Olive proceeded to feature him accordingly, to the solid satisfaction of her father and to the no small rapture of his old-time cronies. As a matter of course, under this new and unorthodox arrangement, a dinner invitation at the Keltridges' became a thing of almost infinite value. Apart from the surety of the good dinner, and the cordial welcome of the pretty little hostess who, young as she was, yet understood to the full the delicate distinction between chat and chatter: apart from all this was the humorous question contained within the host. No one could ever foretell whether he would greet them on the threshold in his overcoat and goloshes, or be invisible until the dinner was announced, and then be led in by one cuff, like a guilty youngster caught among the jam pots. No one ever could foretell, either, what would be the doctor's costume for the evening, whether it would combine a dinner jacket and a four-in-hand, or whether a wadded housecoat and no necktie at all above his evening linen would announce to his guests that a sudden thirst for knowledge had cut athwart his dressing and sent him to the laboratory to discover how some malignant brew or other might be getting on. Upon one point only Olive, product of these modern days, stood firm. Her father might be as charmingly erratic as he chose; but he must sterilize his hands, before he came into the drawing-room. And upon that one point of domestic discipline his guests rested in placid confidence, sure that, as long as Olive was at the helm, they could devour the Keltridge dinners in reasonable surety of not being poisoned. If Doctor Keltridge was charming as host, he was even more charming, taken as a father. He was adoring, indulgent, whimsical, and singularly tactful in spite of his absent-minded lapses. To Olive, indeed, he seemed to be the only man at all well worth the while. Nevertheless, as now, it sometimes became imperative to be a little masterful in summoning him back to present consciousness just long enough to extract an answer from him. Therefore she tapped the table sharply with the corner of the note. "Listen, father!" she urged him, as she laid her other hand across the open paper. "What shall I say?" "Say that they are impossible young asses, a year and a half behind the times," her father growled, the while he shifted his paper slightly, to free its final column from her covering fingers. A total stranger to the doctor might have distrusted either his own ears, or else the doctor's sanity. Olive knew her father, though; she felt no forebodings, albeit her eyes danced at the unexpected nature of his response. "I am afraid that Mrs. Dennison might not take it nicely, if I did," she said. The doctor's growl rumbled forth once more. "Better know what one is talking about, then. That theory was all exploded, months ago." Then some echo of his daughter's words seemed at last to be penetrating his brain, and he lowered his paper with a sigh. "What has Mrs. Dennison to do with a thing like this, Olive?" he queried blankly. "Dennison is only history, not biological." Olive laughed outright. "And Mrs. Dennison is only socio-hospitable," she responded. "Father, you really are terrible, this morning." The doctor smiled benevolently at her arraignment. Then, hurriedly gathering himself together, he stuck out an appealing cup for some more coffee. Olive shook her head. "No; not one other drop. You have had five, already. If you don't stop at that, I'll tell the cook to put you on to postum. Now please do listen to me. I was asking you whether we'd best go to this dinner of Mrs. Dennison's." "When?" the doctor inquired. Olive's lips twitched at the corners. "About a half an hour ago," she answered. "No, wait." Swiftly she seized and snatched away the paper, just as her father was preparing to bury himself anew. "The dinner is next Thursday, to meet Mr. Brenton." "Who is Mr. Brenton?" her father asked, with bland interest. "The new rector. You heard him, two weeks ago, you know." This time, Olive's accent held a slight reproach. Purely as a matter of heredity, Doctor Keltridge was senior warden of Saint Peter's; but, as a general rule, he totally forgot to go to church. "Oh, yes, yes. The new chap with the voice." The doctor roused himself suddenly. "It is a wonderful voice, Olive; his whole respiratory system must be perfect, and his lungs. I never heard a better resonance nor better breath control. Really, I'd like to hear him speak at closer range. When did you say the dinner is? Of course, we'll go. Dennison isn't a bad little fellow, even if his mind did stop short at history." "The dinner is for Thursday," Olive reiterated patiently. "Thursday. Hm. What am I doing then?" her father questioned for, as may be imagined, it was Olive who kept the run of his engagements. "Nothing, after the hospital directors' meeting at two. Really," Olive spoke a little absently, herself; "I almost wish that you were." As invariably happened, the doctor's attention became alert when she least expected it. "Eh? What?" he asked her, in manifest surprise, for it was most unusual for Olive to balk at any invitation. Her colour came. "Oh, it's all right. Of course, we'll go. In fact, there's no getting out of it, as long as you are senior warden." The doctor fished for the cord of his see-off glasses. When they were astride his nose,-- "You like Mrs. Dennison, Olive," he said crisply. "Therefore, by a process of elimination, it probably is the Brentons you don't want to meet. What is the matter with them?" "Oh, nothing," the girl evaded. "It's only that I hate too prompt a rushing into a new acquaintance." "Not always," her father reminded her. "As a rule, you've been willing enough to meet the new people at the college." Olive Keltridge's ancestral notions, the notions born of Brahmin and academic New England, spoke in her reply. "Yes; but they are different." Her father, though, saw more clearly. He was too well aware of the quality of the raw material whence the growing college faculties must recruit their ranks. "Not always, Olive; at least, not nowadays, even if it used to be. But what is the matter with Brenton? He seems possible enough." "Nothing," she confessed, with a little blush for her distinction between man and wife. "It is only Mrs. Brenton. He is very possible, I should say; but she seems to me a--" and Olive laughed at the absurdity of her own coming phrase; "a trifle improbable." The doctor shook his head. "I haven't seen her." "Yes, you have. She was just in front of us, the woman in the pinky-yellow feather and the pompadour. You must remember her; she was casting sheep's-eyes at Mr. Brenton, all the time he was preaching. That was the way I found out who she was. My curiosity led me to ask Dolph Dennison about her, and I was quite upset when Dolph tweaked my elbow and made signals of distress at poor Mr. Brenton who was standing near us. If he is as thin-skinned as he looks, poor man, it must be rather hard to go into a new parish and watch the people getting accustomed to his wife." "He brought it on himself," the doctor said, with scanty charity. "And he has also brought it upon us," Olive assented grimly. "Still, if you say so, I will write to Mrs. Dennison that we will come. You'll not forget? In the meantime, I'll raise my eben-ezer of devout thanksgiving that I'm a girl and therefore can't possibly sit next to Mrs. Brenton at the table. I only hope that honour will descend on you." And it did. Moreover, in the talk which followed on the being seated, it was Catia who took the initiative. She was affable, as befitted her husband's lofty rank, sprightly, as seemed considerate of the great age of the man beside her. Both attributes were a little bit intensified by her complete pleasure in her frock. It had come by express from New York, that day, ordered by a picture in a catalogue. The box that held it was adorned with a mammoth scarlet star, and the scheme of decoration of the frock was wholly consonant with the star. Catia had ordered it in hot haste, in deference to a rumour which had drifted to her ears, outstretched in readiness for all such rumours, that, even in that relatively small community, it was the custom to put on low-necked frocks for dinner. It was the first time that Catia had worn a low-necked frock; but she did not find it disconcerting in the least. It did disconcert Brenton very much, however. Its abbreviated bodice did not fit in with his notions of what was seemly for a rector's wife; moreover, to the end of time, he never could find any great degree of beauty in a woman's shoulder-blades. Brenton himself was in his plain clerical costume from which, nowadays, he made it his rule never to depart. It was a slightly different costume from the one he had worn at first, more distinctly clerical. Even in the morning, when it descended to the worldly level of a subdued species of pepper-and-salt, it always opened chiefly in the back, and a plain silver cross invariably dangled from a cord about his neck. As a matter of course, he always kept himself clean-shaven; and his scholarly stoop endured still, although the old, self-distrustful shamble had strengthened into a manly stride. His eyes were as lustrous as of old, his close, up-springing hair lay as thick as ever on his crown; but the lower part of his face showed changes, born of the years. Still lined, still looking just a little worn, it had gained something in decision, gained infinitely more in sensitive refinement. In Scott, the native clay was being replaced by translucent marble. In Catia, it was hardening to something akin to adamant. That night, Catia wasted but little time in the preliminary conversation with her host who, as a matter of course, had taken her in to dinner. Dennison was older than he looked, less impressed than he seemed, and clothed impeccably. Catia dismissed him as a youngster of scanty account, for he certainly was not formidable to look upon, and her studies in the Napoleonic period had never brought her into close acquaintance with his really epoch-making monograph. To be sure, she had heard some one saying that he golfed extremely well; but as yet her social education was far too rudimentary to allow her mind to grasp all that that fact connoted. Therefore she turned her attention to Doctor Keltridge a thought sooner than the strict laws of table talk allowed. Of Doctor Keltridge she had heard already and often. He was their senior warden, and she the rector's lady; they could not fail to have many points in common. By way of discovering those points quite promptly, Catia turned away from Dennison and ruthlessly cut in upon Doctor Keltridge's amicable sparring with his other neighbour whom, as it chanced, the good doctor had escorted across the portal of this world. "Oh, Doctor Keltridge!" Catia took great pleasure in the spontaneous accent she contrived to fling into the words. "I do want--" Startled, and a little bit surprised at the sudden voice above his off-turned shoulder, the doctor bestirred himself and threw out a vaguely searching hand. Then, as his hand found nothing before it but a bank of flowers, he emitted one of the customary growls with which, to his more intimate friends, he disclosed the fact that the motors of his ego were temporarily stalled. "Never is any butter at such a time!" he grumbled. Then he rallied to the questioning note in Catia's voice. "What else can I get you, madame?" he inquired benignly. There was an instant's hush about the table. Olive, in the lee of the clerical elbow and with young Dolph Dennison by her side, was palpably in danger of hysterics. The others, all but Brenton, were well enough accustomed to the doctor to await the finish of the interview with no small degree of interest. Brenton felt the pause and reddened a little, more in marital self-consciousness than from any specific sense of conjugal alarm. Indeed, the only two unconscious ones about the table were the two protagonists: Catia and the absent-minded doctor, neither of whom appeared to be in the least aware of any pause in the general talk. "Nothing at all," Catia told him suavely. "It was only that I wanted--" Again there came the instant's hesitation. Again the doctor employed that instant in a frenzied search about the table to discover and make good the missing need. This time, though, his success was better. It was with a sigh of unmistakable relief that his fingers shut upon the salt. His gesture crossed the final words of Catia who had resumed her broken phrase, now rounding to a satisfactory conclusion. "--So much to meet you, Doctor Keltridge. Ever since I heard of you," her eyes looked smilingly into his keen ones which now, a little bit inscrutable, were studying her intently from beneath their bushy brows; "I have told Scott that I felt quite certain that we should find out we had any number of tastes in common." This time, the pause was not of Catia's making. The doctor let it lengthen while, to all of his old friends about the table, it was plain that the motors of his ego now were working at full speed. Meanwhile, his keen old eyes were still resting upon Catia's up-raised face, and in them was the same look an aged sheepdog might bestow upon a youthful terrier puppy. Then a smile broke over the keen face, and the stern eyes lighted, as the doctor spoke. "I surely hope so, Mrs. Brenton," he answered her benignantly. "As you see, I like horse radish with my oysters. How is it about you?" _

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