It was this spirit, she thought, which had perhaps given Kentucky its reputation for feminine pulchritude. To be a beauty is not difficult where every one encourages the idea, where feminine charm is regarded as in itself an end and a purpose, to be fortified by every means at the command of art or nature.... Joan fluttered along with the best, modestly unconscious of the eyes that paid her homage, but aware nevertheless of her occasional reflection in plate-glass windows; and it should be recorded that before she went to her father's office she made the purchase of a stick of pink lip-pomade and a cake of solid face-powder, with a little puff and mirror included. Why these articles should have given her increased courage for an interview with her parent, is difficult to state; but the fact remains that they did.
She came presently to a doorway upon which was printed in large gold lettering: RICHARD DARCY. LOANS AND INVESTMENTS. Joan was secretly impressed. Perhaps the Office was not the mere figure of speech she had sometimes fancied it.
She knocked. No answer came. Listening, she heard inside the familiar whirr of an electric fan mingling with a sound she could not for the moment place--a buzzing as of many flies, but rising and falling at more rhythmic intervals.
She turned the knob. Within, drawn by an open window through which might be glimpsed the broad Ohio rolling drowsily, stood a decrepit Morris chair which Joan recognized as an old friend; wherein lay sprawled at comfortable length the Major. At his elbow stood a bottle and a glass, both empty. His handsome nose, forgetting for the moment all acquaintance with the grindstone, was tilted at the angle of least resistance, and from it issued the rhythmic buzzing that had puzzled his child.
"Daddy!" she said reluctantly. Somehow the Major asleep, with a plump leg draped over the arm of his chair and his mouth slightly open, made up in disarming appeal what he lost in impressiveness. He was like a gray-haired little boy, tired out with playing.
But, "Father!" said Joan more loudly. "Wake up, please. I've come to see you on business."
He opened his eyes with a jerk. "Eh? What's that, what's that, what's that? Tut, tut! Must have dozed off. What's that?" The eyes tried to close again, but he was firm with them, and presently recognized his daughter. "That you, Dollykins? Well, well, well! Come down to pay Dad a visit, eh? That's nice, that's nice!"