As for her Uncle Chandler, he punctiliously dressed for dinner, and punctiliously sat at one end of the big dining-room table while Teddie just as solemnly sat at the other—though she did once emerge sufficiently from her self-absorption to remark that they looked exactly like two palm-trees on the edge of the Sahara. She also once ventured to ask if Watkins really oughtn’t to have a passport when he carried the joint all the way from her end of the table down to the old Major’s end of the table. And her Uncle Chandler brightened up sufficiently to inquire if he hadn’t better order a taxi to run them out to the terrace for coffee, so abysmally vast seemed the distances in that dolorous and empty house.
If the old Major remained suspiciously meek and long-suffering during these days of trial, it must be acknowledged that he made divers and undivulged trips in to the City, whence he returned oddly fortified in spirit and beguilingly abstracted in manner. The only excursion which brought him obvious displeasure was that when he brought back to Teddie a motor-truck loaded down with her studio possessions—which the lady in question solemnly committed to a bonfire on the rear end of the East Drive. And that afternoon as they sat taking tea and cinnamon-toast on the Terrace, he finally found the courage to confront the morose-eyed young lady who sat in the high-backed willow-chair so moodily tearing an Ophelia rose to pieces.
“Say, Teddie, isn’t it about time you were loosening up?” the old Major quietly inquired.
“About what?” demanded Teddie, taking her third slice of cinnamon-toast.
“A revelation of what?” asked Uncle Chandler as he put his teacup down.
“Of what men are!” asserted the abstracted-eyed Teddie.
“Of course,” said the old Major as he took out a chased gold case and meditatively extracted a cigarette. “So let’s have it, Teddikins, hook, line and sinker!”
“I telegraphed to father,” she inappositely remarked.
“Where _is_ Trummie this summer?” her uncle inquired.
“He’s still at the Arizona Camp Observatory,” explained Teddie.
“Trummie moves so slowly,” complained the old Major. “The poor man can’t help it, I suppose, trailing that chain of D. S.’s, and F. R. S.’s and F. R. G. S.’s around after him all the time. But I suppose you felt he was the proper person to talk such things over with?”