National Avenue - Booth Tarkington (the little red hen ebook TXT) 📗

seemed to be insisting upon this in a tone so plaintively argumentative. “Indeed she has! She has just exactly the qualities I’ve always admired in the noblest women I’ve ever known.”

“In grandma, for instance?” Harlan inquired.

“What?”

“You said she had just the qualities you’ve observed in the noblest women. Well, grandma has noble qualities. I was wondering⁠—”

“No,” Dan said, swallowing. “Lena⁠—well, she’s different.”

“If she has the qualities that will help you in building your future,” Mrs. Oliphant said, “that will be enough for us.”

“She has, mother. Those are just exactly the qualities she’s got. Don’t you think when⁠—when⁠—” He faltered, obviously in timidity, and glanced nervously at the observant Harlan.

“When what, dear?”

“Well, when⁠—when a wife’s an⁠—an inspiration,” he said, gulping the word out;⁠—“well, isn’t that just everything?”

“Of course, dear,” Mrs. Oliphant said comfortingly. Then, when she had touched her eyes with her lace-edged little handkerchief, she spoke more briskly. “This will be quite exciting news for your grandmother, Dan. Poor dear woman! She’s been waiting so anxiously for you to come home; and she’s grown so frail these last few months; she kept saying she was afraid she wouldn’t last till you got here. She’s devoted to Harlan, of course, but I think you’ve always been a little her favourite, Dan.”

“A little?” Harlan repeated serenely. “She really doesn’t like me at all.”

“Oh, yes, she does,” his mother protested. “She’s devoted to you, too, but she⁠—”

“No,” Harlan interrupted quietly; “she’s never liked me. I have no doubt when her will is read you’ll find it out.”

But upon this his father intervened cheerfully. “Let’s don’t talk about her will just yet,” he said. “She’s going to be with us a long time, we hope. Dan, you’d better go and tell her your news tomorrow.”

“I did, sir. I went this afternoon.”

“What did she say?”

Dan passed his hand across his forehead. “Well⁠—she⁠—well, I told her about it and⁠—well, you know how she is, sir. She⁠—isn’t apt to get enthusiastic about hardly anything. She seemed to think⁠—well, one thing she seemed to think was that I’m sort of young to be gettin’ married.”

“Well, maybe,” said his father. “Maybe she’s right.”

“No, sir, I don’t believe so. You see grandma is almost ninety-three. Why, to a person of that age almost anybody else looks pretty young. You see, it isn’t so much I am young; it’s only I look young to grandma.”

But upon this argument, delivered in a tone most hopeful of convincing, Mr. Oliphant laughed outright. “So that’s the way of it!” he exclaimed, and, returning to his seat by the fire, again extended his feet to the fender. “Well, whether you’re really a little too young or only appear so, on account of your grandmother’s advanced age, we have to face the fact that you’ve asked this young lady to marry you, and she’s said she will. When that’s happened, all the old folks can do is to make the best of it. You know we’ll do that, don’t you, son?”

“Yes, sir,” Dan said a little bleakly. “I knew you would.” He took the blue case from his mother’s lap, and kissed her as she looked pathetically up at him; then he moved toward the door. “I⁠—I always knew I could count on you and mother, sir.”

“Yes, Dan,” Mrs. Oliphant murmured, “you know you can.”

And her husband, from his chair by the fireside, echoed this with a heartiness that was somewhat husky: “Yes, indeed, Dan. If the young lady is necessary to your happiness⁠—”

“Yes, sir.”

“Why, we’ll just try to say, ‘God bless you both,’ my boy.”

“Yes, sir,” Dan returned, with an inadequacy that he seemed to feel, himself, for he lingered near the doorway some moments more, coughed in a futile and unnecessary manner, then said feebly: “Well⁠—well, thank you,” and retired slowly to his own room.

When his steps were no longer heard ascending the broad stairway, the sound of a quick sob, too impulsive to be smothered, was heard in the silent library, and Mr. Oliphant turned to stare at his wife. “Well, what’s the matter?” he said. “I told you, you can’t tell anything from a photograph, didn’t I?”

She pressed her handkerchief to her eyes and shook her head, offering no other response.

Thereupon he struck the poker into the fire, badgered a lump of coal, and said gruffly: “It’s all nonsense! She may turn out to be the finest girl in the world. How can you tell anything from a photograph?”

“You can’t much,” the serene Harlan agreed. He spoke from his easy-chair in the bay window, whither he had returned from an unemotional excursion to the blue leather case when it was exhibited. “You can see, though, that Dan’s young person is perfect, as he said, in several ways.”

“Think so?”

“Yes; she’s perfectly à la mode; she’s perfectly pretty⁠—and perfectly what we usually call shallow.”

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“Don’t you?” Harlan asked, with a slight amusement, and added reflectively: “Martha Shelby won’t like this much, I dare say.”

“No,” Mrs. Oliphant said faintly. “Poor Martha!”

“Oh, look here!” her husband remonstrated. “What’s the use of all this? You’re acting as if we were facing a calamity. Dan’s got a mighty good head on his shoulders; he wouldn’t fall in love with a mere little goose. Besides, didn’t I ask you: ‘What can you tell from a photograph?’ ”

“Not everything, sir,” Harlan interposed. “But you can usually get an idea of the type of person it’s a photograph of.”

“Yes, you can,” Mrs. Oliphant said. “That’s what frightens me. She doesn’t seem the type that would want to take care of him when he’s sick and be interested in his business and help him. She might even be the type that wouldn’t like living here, after New York, and would get to complaining and want to take him away. Of course it is true we can’t tell from that photograph, though.”

“Can’t you?” Harlan asked with a short laugh. “Then why are you so disturbed by it?”

“That’s sense,” his father said approvingly. “If you can’t tell anything about her, what’s the sense of worrying?”

“It doesn’t appear that you got