XVI
When the real season opened, you might have thought that the wholeventure was Mr. Sam Langham's and that he had risked the whole of hismoney in it. Without being officious, he had words of anxious advice forthe Darlings, severally and collectively. His early breakfasts in SmokeHouse with Mary, the chef beaming upon the efficient and friendly pair,lost something of their free and easy social quality, and becameopportunities for the gravest discussions of ways and means.
The opening day would see every spare room in the place occupied--by aman. To Mary it seemed a little curious that so few women, so fewfamilies, and so many bachelors had applied for rooms. But to SamLangham the reasons for this were clear and definite.
"It was the picture in the first issues of your advertisement that didit. I only compliment and felicitate you when I say that every bachelorwho saw that picture must have made up his mind to come here if hepossibly could. And that every woman who saw it must have felt that shecould spend a happier summer somewhere else. Now, if you had circulateda picture of half a dozen men, each as good-looking as your brotherArthur, the results would have been just the opposite."
"Women aren't such idiots about other women's looks as you think theyare," said Mary.
"I didn't say they were idiots; I intimated that they were sensible. Theprettiest woman at a summer resort always has a good time--not the best,necessarily, but very good. Now, no woman could look at that picture ofyou and your sisters and expect to be considered the prettiest woman_here_. Could she, Chef?"
Chef laughed a loud, scornful, defiant, gesticulant, Gallic laugh. Hisgood-natured features focussed into a scathing Parisian sneer; he turneda delicate omelette over in the air and said, "Lala!"
"There are," continued Mr. Langham, "only half a dozen women in theworld who can compare in looks with you and your sisters. There's thePrincess Oducalchi--your mother. There's the Countess of Kingston, Mrs.Waring, Miss Virginia Clark--but these merely compare. They don'tcompete."
Mr. Langham tried to look very sly and wicked, and he sang in a hummingvoice: "Oh, to be a Mussulman, now that spring is here."
"Coffee?" said Mary.
"Please."
"Well," said she, as she poured, "the whys and wherefores don't matter.It's to be a bachelor resort--that seems definitely settled. But I thinkwe had better send the triplets away. I don't want the Pritchard andHerring episodes repeated while my nerves are in this present state. Andthere's Lee--if she isn't leading Renier into one folly after another, Idon't know what she is doing. They seem to think that keeping an inn isa mere excuse for flirtation."
"Don't send them away," said Langham. "If you sent those three girls toa place where there weren't any men at all--they'd flirt with theirshadows. Better have 'em flirting where you can watch 'em than where youcan't. And besides--are you quite sure that the Pritchard and Herringepisodes were mere flirtations? Day before yesterday I came upon MissGay by accident; she was practising casting."
"That's how she spends half her time."
"But she was practising with Pritchard's rod! Yesterday I came upon herin the same place----"
"By accident?" smiled Mary.
"By design," he said honestly. "And this time she wasn't casting. Shehad the rod lying across her knees, and her eyes were turned dreamilytoward the bluest and most distant mountain-top."
"'Why do you look at that mountain?' I said.
"'Because it's blue, too,' said she.
"'And what makes you blue?' I asked.
"'The same cause that makes the mountain blue,' said she.
"'Hum,' said I. 'Then it must be distance.'
"'Something like that,' she said. 'I sometimes think I'm the most distantperson in the world.'
"'You're probably not the only person who thinks that!' said I.
"And she said, 'No? Really?' And that was all I could get out of her.Except that, just as I was walking away, I heard a sharp whistling soundand my cap--my new plaid cap--was suddenly tweaked from the top of myhead and hung in a tree. She must have practised a lot with that rod ofPritchard's. It was a beautiful cast----"
"She might have put your eye out!" exclaimed Mary.
"She hung the apple of my eye in a tree," said he dolefully. "You knowthat one with the green and brown? And last night it rained."
"I hope she expressed sorrow," said Mary.
"She was going to, but I got laughing and then she did."
"What a dear you are!" exclaimed Mary. "And so you think she's makingherself mournful over Mr. Pritchard? And what are the reasons forthinking that Phyllis is serious about Mr. Herring?"
"He's sent for blue-prints of his property outside Boston, and they arebusy with plans for landscaping it. Narrow escape that! I didn't let on;but the second day I thought he was a goner. I did."
Mary sighed.
"We might just as well have called it a matrimonial agency in the firstplace instead of an inn."
Mr. Langham rose reluctantly.
"I have an engagement with Miss Maud," he explained.
The faintest ripple of disappointment flitted across Mary's forehead.
"I've promised to help her with her books," said he. "Some of thejournal entries puzzle her; and she has an idea that The Inn ought tohave more capital. And we are going into that, too."
"I hope," said Mary, "that you aren't going to lend us money withoutconsulting me."
Chef was in a distant corner, quite out of ear-shot. And Mr. Langham,emboldened by one of the most delicious breakfasts he had ever eaten,shot an arch glance at Miss Darling.
"I wouldn't consult you about lending money," he said; "I wouldn'tconsult you about giving money. But any time you'll let me consult youabout _sharing_ money----"
Panic overtook him, and he turned and fled. But upon Mary's brow was nolonger any ripple of disappointment--only the unbroken alabaster ofsmooth serenity. She reached for the household keys and said to herself:
"Maud is a steady girl--even if the rest of us aren't."
She caught a glimpse of herself in the bottom of a highly polishedcopper utensil and couldn't help being pleased with what she saw.
On the way to the office Mr. Langham fell in with Arthur. This one,Uncas scolding and chatting upon his shoulder, was starting off for aday's botanizing--or dreaming maybe.
"Arthur--one moment, please," said Langham. "As the head of the familyI want to consult you about something."
"Yes?" said Arthur sweetly. "Of course, Uncas, you are too noisy." Andhe put the offended little beast into his green collecting case.
"I never would have come here," said Mr. Langham, "if it hadn't been forthat advertisement."
Arthur frowned slightly.
"You mean----"
"Yes. But I came," said Mr. Langham, "not as a pagan Turk but as aChristian gentleman. I was just about to take passage for Liverpool whenI saw your sister Mary looking out at me from _The Four Seasons_. And soI wrote to ask if I could come here. I have lived well, but I am notdisappointed. I am very rich----"
"My dear Sam," said Arthur, "you are the best fellow in the world. Whatdo you want of me?"
"To know that you think I'd try my best to make a girl happy if she'dlet me."
"A girl?" smiled Arthur. "_Any_ girl?"
"In all the world," said Mr. Langham, "there is only one girl."
"If I were you," said Arthur, "I'd ask her what _she_ thought aboutit."
Langham assumed a look of terrible gloom.
"If she didn't think well of it I'd want to cut my throat. I'd ratherkeep on living in blissful uncertainty, but I wanted _you_ toknow--_why_ I am here, and _why_ I want to stay on and on."
"Why, I'm very glad to know," said Arthur, "but surely it's your ownaffair."
Mr. Langham shook his head.
"Last night," said he, "I was dozing on my little piazza. Who should rowby at a distance but Miss Gay and Miss Lee. You know how sounds carrythrough an Adirondack night? Miss Lee said to Miss Gay: 'I tell you hedoesn't. Not _really_. He's j
ust a male flirt.' 'A butterfly,' said MissGay."
"But how do you know they were referring to you?"
"By the way the blessed young things laughed at the word '_butterfly_'.So I wanted you to know that my intentions are tragically serious, nomatter what others may say. Whatever I may be, and I have been insultedmore than once about my figure and my habits, I am _not_ a flirt. I amjust as romantic as if I was a living skeleton."
Here Arthur's head went back, and he laughed till the tears came. AndMr. Langham couldn't help laughing, too.
A few moments later he was going over The Inn books with Maud Darlingand displaying for her edification an astonishing knowledge of entriesand a truly magical facility in figuring. Suddenly, apropos of somethingnot in the least germane, he said:
"Miss Maud, when in your opinion is the most opportune time for a man topropose to a girl?"
"When he's got her alone," said she promptly, "and has just beendazzling her with a display of his erudition and understanding."
And she, whom Mary had described as the one steady sister in the lot,flung him a melting and piercing glance. But Mr. Langham was notdeceived.
"I ask you an academic question," he said, "and you give me anabsolutely cradle-snatching answer. I may _look_ easy, Miss Maud, butthere are people who will protect me."
"The best time to propose to a girl? You really want to know? I thoughtyou were just starting one of your jokes."
"If I am," said he, "the joke will be on me. But I _really_ want toknow."
"The best moment," said she, "is that moment in which she learns thatone of her friends or one of her sisters younger than she is engaged tobe married. When an unengaged girl hears of another girl's engagementshe has a momentary panic, during which she is helpless and defenseless.That is my best judgment, Mr. Sam Langham. And the older the girl thegreater the panic. And now I've betrayed my sex. In fact, I have toldyou absolutely all that is definitely known about girls."
Just outside the office he met Gay.
"Halloo!" she said.
He only made signs at her and flapped his arms up and down.
"_They_ can't talk," he said.
"Who can't talk?"
He held her with a stern glance, and if the word had been hissable,would have hissed it.
"Butterflies," he said.
Then Miss Gay turned the color of a scarlet maple in the fall of theyear. Then she squealed and ran.
The Seven Darlings Page 16