National Avenue, Booth Tarkington [8 ebook reader .txt] 📗

were bright with a welling moisture, so deep was his worship; and George was himself affected.

“Oh, all right, if you feel that way about it,” he said, “I guess it’ll be all right. I’m sure it will. You’re a mighty right chap, I think.”

“I?” Dan exclaimed. “I’m nothin’ at all! And when I think that your sister could stoop⁠—could stoop to⁠—to me⁠—why, I⁠—”

He was overcome and could not go on.

The end of it was that when he went home in February it was to acquaint his family with the fact of his engagement; and in spite of his happiness he was a little uneasy. He did not fear the interview with his father and mother; and though he disliked the prospect of talking about Lena with Harlan, who was sure to be critical and superior, he had learned to get along without Harlan’s approval. What made him uneasy was his anticipation of the invincible pessimism of that iron old lady, his grandmother.

III

The Oliphants’ high white iron fence was a hundred and fifty feet long on National Avenue, a proud frontage, but the next yard to the north had one even prouder: it was of a hundred and eighty feet, and the big house that stood in this yard was almost that far back from the street. Built of brick and painted white, it reached a palatial climax in a facing of smooth white stone under a mansard roof, and the polished black walnut front doors opened upon a stone veranda. From the veranda a broad stone path led through the lawn and passed a stone fountain on its way to the elaborate cast-iron front gate, which was a congenial neighbour to the Oliphants’ cast-iron gate to the south. The stone fountain culminated in a bronze swan, usually well supplied with ejectory water in the summertime but somewhat bleak of aspect in winter, when the swan’s open beak, perpetually vacant, suggested to an observer the painful strain of unending effort absolutely wasted. It was a relief, after a snowstorm, to see the too-conscientious cavity partially choked.

A little snow remained there, like a cupful of salt that the dutiful bird had firmly refused to swallow, and snow glistened also along its dark green back, one February afternoon, when a lady on her way from the house to the gate paused by the fountain and regarded the swan with apparent thoughtfulness. She was twenty-three or perhaps twenty-four, tall and robust, a large young woman, handsome, and in a state of exuberant good health⁠—her hearty complexion and the brightness of her clear hazel eyes were proof enough of that⁠—and though a powdery new snow, just fallen, lay upon the ground and the air was frosty, she wore her fur coat thrown as far open as possible. And that her thoughtfulness about the bronze swan was only an appearance of thoughtfulness, and not actual, was denoted by the fact that her halt at the fountain coincided with a sound from a short distance to the south of her. This sound was the opening and closing of a heavy door;⁠—it was in fact the Oliphants’ front door, one of the ponderous double doors of black walnut, like other front doors of the stately row. The lady looked at the swan only until the young man who had just closed that door behind him emerged from the deep vestibule and came down the steps.

He was a stalwart, dark-haired, blue-eyed young man, comely in feature and of an honest, friendly expression; and although the robust young lady was as familiar with his appearance as one could be who had lived all her life next door, yet when her gaze swept from the swan to him, she looked a little startled, also a little amused. What thus surprised and amused her was the unusual magnificence of his attire. Upon occasion she had seen a high hat upon him and likewise a full-skirted long coat and a puffed scarf, but never spats until now; and never before had she seen him carry a cane. This was of shining ebony, with a gold top, and swung from a hand in a dove-coloured glove. Dove was the exquisite tint, too, of his spats.

“Dan Oliphant!” she cried. “Why, my goodness!”

At the sound of her voice his eye brightened;⁠—he turned at once, left the cement path that led to his own gate and came across the frozen lawn to the partition fence not far from her. Still exclaiming, she went there to meet him.

“My goodness gracious, Dan!” she cried, and shook hands with him between two rods of the iron fence.

“What’s the matter, Martha?” he inquired. “I’m mighty glad to see you. I just got home from New York yesterday.”

“I know you did,” she said. “I mean I see you did. I should say so!”

“What’s all the excitement?”

She proved unable to reply otherwise than by continuing her exclamations. “Why, Dan!” she cried. “Dan Oliphant!”

At that he seemed to feel there would be no readier way to solve the puzzle of her behaviour than to adopt her style himself. “Martha!” he exclaimed then, in amiable mockery of her. “Martha Shelby! Well, good gracious me!”

“It’s the royal robes,” she explained. “I’m overcome. Your mother and father have been worrying about your staying so long in New York, but certainly they understand now what detained you.”

“What do you think it was, Martha?” he asked, his colour heightening a little.

“Why, you were learning to wear spats, of course, and how to carry a gold-headed cane. Is the President passing through town this afternoon?”

“No. Why?”

“I thought you might be one of a committee to meet him at the station and give him the keys of the city,” said Miss Shelby. “Or are you going to make a speech somewhere?”

“No. I’m going to call on my grandmother.”

“I hope dear old Mrs. Savage will be up to it. Would you like to have me walk with you as far as her gate? I’m going that way.”

“You