Page:Glimpses of the Moon (Wharton 1922).djvu/99

Rh she had welcomed him with appropriate enthusiasm. In fact, to the lookers-on her joy at seeing him seemed rather too patently in proportion to her satisfaction at getting her clothes. But no such suspicion appeared to mar Mr. Vanderlyn's happiness in being, for once, and for nearly twenty-four hours, under the same roof with his wife and child. He did not conceal his regret at having promised his mother to join her the next day; and added, with a wistful glance at Ellie: "If only I'd known you meant to wait for me—!"

But being a man of duty, in domestic as well as business affairs, he did not even consider the possibility of disappointing the exacting old lady to whom he owed his being. "Mother cares for so few people," he used to say, not without a touch of filial pride in the parental exclusiveness, "that I have to be with her rather more than if she were more sociable"; and with smiling resignation he gave orders that Clarissa should be ready to start the next evening.

"And meanwhile," he concluded, "we'll have all the good time that's going."

The ladies of the party seemed united in the desire to further this resolve; and it was settled that as soon as Mr. Vanderlyn had despatched a hasty luncheon, his wife, Clarissa and Susy should carry him off for a tea-picnic at Torcello. They did not even suggest that Strefford or Nick should be of the party, or that any of the other young men of the group should be summoned; as Susy