The talkers

There were lights in both drawing-rooms when Stuart let in Gilda and himself with his latch-key. She let slip her evening wrap; he laid it on a chair by the console, with his hat and stick.

There were no traces of tears on Gilda’s face, but she was rather colourless.

“It’s dreadfully late,” she whispered to Stuart; “do you think you should have brought me?”

“Father knows there was a girl with me as my guest in the Forest. That ass Anderson—do you remember I introduced him when we walked over to Fisher-cat Dam? Well, he’s here and he mentioned my being there with a ‘pretty girl.’ That’s why I don’t care to lose any time about it.”

Gilda’s colour came back quickly. “No,” she said, “it’s better not to delay.”

“I’m sorry I had to tell you,” he said. “I hope it won’t disconcert you.”

She seemed a trifle surprised that the prospect of meeting his family under any circumstances should disconcert her.

“They’re really not formidable,” he added, seriously.

She regarded him blankly, suddenly melted into a bewitching smile.

“You’re so sweet,” she murmured, “and so entirely all that you should be. Take me to your parents and explain me, darling, and I’ll try to be scared to death.”

He was too nervous himself to notice her adorable but saucy levity. He glanced into the west drawing-room and saw his mother there alone, playing solitaire.

“Is it you, Stuart?” she said, busy with her cards. “I thought I heard your key in the door.”

He took Gilda’s soft hand and went in. When his mother raised her abstracted eyes she saw them standing before her in an odd, faintly smiling silence.

“Mother,” he said, “this is Gilda Greenway. I’m madly in love with her. She has consented to marry me. We haven’t thought much about the date—in fact, we haven’t talked about it—but if she is willing I can’t see any use in waiting——”

The flushed astonishment on his mother’s face checked his nervous eloquence.

His mother arose. The manners of all the Suttons were perfect when they chose.

She held out a gemmed hand to Gilda. When the girl laid her own on it: “My child, what is this young man of mine trying to tell me?” asked his mother.

Under the calm scrutiny the girl’s colour heightened to a lovely tint, but she smiled.

“He’s trying to say to you that we are very much in love, Mrs. Sutton. We met this last winter. I’m sure it was love at sight with me.”

She bent her charming head, hesitated:

“We have been spending the evening together. Stuart thought that perhaps this was the best way——”

“Mother,” said the boy earnestly, “she’s a perfect darling!——”

This is the moment in the lives of two young people when what is said and done by parents determines the future relations of all concerned.

These children did not know it, but the boy’s mother did. She knew she could lose her son to this girl by a word or look—lose him in bitterness which never could be entirely forgotten. Every instinct in her was antagonistic to this departure from rule-of-thumb, from immemorial routine, from inherited conformation to convention.

Slowly she looked from her only son to this stranger. The girl was lovely to look upon.

She started to speak, waited to control her voice—the tremor of sudden tears in her throat—a throat all a-quiver with the protest of offended pride—of resentment, revolt indescribable.

But all the time she realised what this moment would mean to her and to her son, and to their future relationship.

She had her voice under control. She said to Gilda:

“If you love as I do, you understand Stuart’s mother at this moment better than he can.”

Gilda’s face became beautifully grave.

“I do understand. It wasn’t fair for me to come—I didn’t realise how unfair, until now——”

She turned impulsively toward her lover, but his mother retained her hand:

“Don’t go. My son’s guests are welcome.... I think you would be welcome anyway. And if he is to marry you, this is your proper place, my child.”

Gilda’s eyes became suddenly misty: she averted them, turned her head slightly:

“It was not the thing to do,” she said. “It was your right to be told, first—to talk to your son undisturbed. I—I’ve made a rather ghastly faux pas——”

“I have!” said Stuart. “I dragged you here——”

His eyes fell on his father who, hearing voices, had come from a game of chess in the other drawing-room.

With Sutton senior was his chess-antagonist, Lady Glyndale, wearing the complacent expression of the victor.

But when Lady Glyndale’s satisfied gaze encountered Gilda, it altered radically.

Stuart, nervously retaining command of the situation, or supposing he commanded it, had already presented his father and Gilda to each other, and had begun in a determined voice:

“Lady Glyndale, my fiancée, Miss Greenway——” when his affianced interrupted calmly:

“Lady Glyndale is my aunt, Stuart. And how on earth we’ve managed to encounter each other here——”

“Are you engaged to be married, Gilda?” demanded Lady Glyndale grimly.

“Yes, I am, Aunt Constance.... If—I am—approved——” She looked at Sutton senior in a bewildered way—turned to Stuart’s mother with the naïve, involuntary impulse of a child seeking refuge.

In an overwhelming rush of relief that lady fully retained her aplomb.

“It appears,” she said to Lady Glyndale, “that your niece and my son have chosen to surprise us.”

She looked at Gilda. The girl went to her, took both her hands, pressing them convulsively.

“You odd, sweet child,” murmured her lover’s mother. “It’s perfectly clear to me that this absurd, rattle-headed son of mine is to blame.”

Lady Glyndale, looking at Gilda, said grimly: “So that’s the reason you have declined to travel with me. Why didn’t you say so?”

The girl’s lips were quivering: “I don’t know, Aunt Constance.... I seem to be a—a mindless sort——”

“You’ve no monopoly of mindlessness,” said Sutton senior, staring hard at Sutton junior.

“For heaven’s sake, dad——”

“Yes, for heaven’s sake,” said his father.

There was a silence. Then the boy’s mother drew the girl to her, and the girl’s red head dropped on her shoulder.

Sutton senior walked over, obviously pulling himself together.

“I’d like to have a look at my own daughter-in-law,” he said to Gilda. “I’d like to see her smile, once——”

“Don’t bother the child now,” said his wife.

But Gilda lifted her head smiling, with wet lashes, and held out her hand.

“Good girl,” said Sutton senior, and shook it gravely. And turned and shook the hand of his only son:

“It’s easy to see she’s much too good for you.”

“Thank you, dad.”

His mother smiled at him. He drew a swift, happy breath, went over to Lady Glyndale.

That lady was in two minds about this business:

“Your mother and father are charming people,” she said frankly. “I hope you are.”

The boy laughed: “I hope I am,” he said, “and I’m sure you can be if you care to, Lady Glyndale.”

“Well,” she said, “I’m not at all sure. It quite depends, you see. Come and talk to me tomorrow.”

“I shall, indeed,” he said, fervently pressing her half-extended hand.

Then Lady Glyndale went over and resolutely kissed Gilda.

“Don’t you think,” she inquired with some sarcasm, “that you could find a few moments to talk over matters with me before I sail?”

“Yes, Aunt Constance,” said the girl meekly.

Lady Glyndale took a brief, comprehensive sweep of the situation, the people, their environment. And into her absolutely British visage came an expression which seemed to mean: “Most certainly this is America and nowhere else, because these things never happen anywhere else on earth.”

But aloud she said amiably: “Good night. I’m going to bed.”

The men accompanied her to the lift. She graciously declined further politeness, got into the lift, started it, and hoisted herself bedward.

Sutton senior and Stuart exchanged an unpremeditated and crushing grip.

“Isn’t Gilda wonderful?” said the boy.

“Absolutely,” replied his father with every symptom of conviction. “So are you, by the way.”

They laughed. Stuart went back to the west drawing-room. Gilda saw him, would have stepped back, but his mother retained her by the hand.

To her son she said: “Dear, I’m so glad you’re happy.” And held him wistfully a moment after they had kissed.

Then, smiling, she kissed Gilda, and went leisurely from the room, leaving her boy to his new love as must all mothers who bear a man-child in pain and travail and gratitude to God.

THE END