Returning from the matinée, Belle and her friend Lou Dawson, before entering their house, crossed over to Fanny’s. Mrs. Worthington tried the door and finding it fastened, rang the bell, then commenced to beat a tattoo upon the pane with her knuckles; an ingenuous manner which she had of announcing her identity. Fanny opened to them herself, and the three walked into the parlor.
“I haven’t seen you for a coon’s age, Fanny,” commenced Belle, “where on earth have you been keeping yourself?”
“You saw me yesterday breakfast time, when you came to borrow the wrapper pattern,” returned Fanny, in serious resentment to her friend’s exaggeration.
“And much good the old wrapper pattern did me: a mile too small every way, no matter how much I let out the seams. But see here—”
“Belle’s the biggest idiot about her size: there’s no convincing her she’s not a sylph.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Dawson.”
“Well, it’s a fact. Didn’t you think Furgeson’s scales were all wrong the other day because you weighed a hundred and eighty pounds?”
“O that’s the day I had that heavy rep on.”
“Heavy nothing. We were coming over last night, Fanny, but we had company,” continued Mrs. Dawson.
“Who d’you have?” asked Fanny mechanically and glad of the respite.
“Bert Rodney and Mr. Grant. They’re so anxious to meet you. I’d ’a sent over for you, but Belle—”
“See here, Fanny, what the mischief was Dave Hosmer doing here to-day, and going down town with you and all that sort o’ thing?”
Fanny flushed uneasily. “Have you seen the evening paper?” she asked.
“How d’you want us to see the paper? we just come from the matinée.”
“David came yesterday,” Fanny said working nervously at the window shade. “He’d wrote me a note the postman brought right after you left with the pattern. When you saw us getting on the car, we were going down to Dr. Martin’s, and we’ve got married again.”
Mrs. Dawson uttered a long, low whistle by way of comment. Mrs. Worthington gave vent to her usual “Well I’ll be switched,” which she was capable of making expressive of every shade of astonishment, from the lightest to the most pronounced; at the same time unfastening the bridle of her bonnet which plainly hindered her free respiration after such a shock.
“Say that Fanny isn’t sly, after that, Belle.”
“Sly? My God, she’s a fool! If ever a woman had a snap! and to go to work and let a man get around her like that.”
Mrs. Worthington seemed powerless to express herself in anything but disconnected exclamations.
“What are you going to do, Fanny?” asked Lou, who having aired all the astonishment which she cared to show, in her whistle, was collected enough to want her natural curiosity satisfied.
“David’s living down South. I guess we’ll go down there pretty soon. Soon’s he can get things fixed up here.”
“Where—down South?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Somewheres in Louisiana.”
“It’s to be hoped in New Orleans,” spoke Belle didactically, “that’s the only decent place in Louisiana where a person could live.”
“No, ’tain’t in New Orleans. He’s got a saw mill somewheres down there.”
“Heavens and earth! a saw mill?” shrieked Belle. Lou was looking calmly resigned to the startling news.
“Oh, I ain’t going to live in a saw mill. I wisht you’d all let me alone, any way,” she returned pettishly. “There’s a lady keeps a plantation, and that’s where he lives.”
“Well of all the rigmaroles! a lady, and a saw mill and a plantation. It’s my opinion that man could make you believe black’s white, Fanny Larimore.”
As Hosmer approached his house, he felt mechanically in his pocket for his latch key; so small a trick having come back to him with the old habit of misery. Of course he found no key. His ring startled Fanny, who at once sprang from her seat to open the door for him; but having taken a few steps, she hesitated and irresolutely re-seated herself. It was only his second ring that the servant unamiably condescended to answer.
“So you’re going to take Fanny away from us, Mr. Hosmer,” said Belle, when he had greeted them and seated himself beside Mrs. Dawson on the small sofa that stood between the door and window. Fanny sat at the adjoining window, and Mrs. Worthington in the center of the room; which was indeed so small a room that any one of them might have reached out and almost touched the hand of the others.
“Yes, Fanny has agreed to go South with me,” he answered briefly. “You’re looking well, Mrs. Worthington.”