Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/204

190 after me. Of course she wanted to know where I was going and what I was going to get, and—well, you know Aunt Julia!" She turned toward him with a pretty gesture of impotence, and he smiled, nodding appreciatively. "Of course Aunt Julia is—Aunt Julia, and all that, but she wouldn't understand why I should want an extra set of plates, just because the Bowerses were coming to dinner, after we'd had all that lovely china given to us when we were married. You know, Ellery,"—her tone pleaded for comprehension,—"to Aunt Julia a plate is a plate, and she wouldn't see why—"

"Of course. That's all right. I understand."

"Well,—those I wanted were rather expensive, and I knew she'd ask why I wanted them, and what I paid for them, and if I thought a young man on a salary, and if a dozen more things, and then she'd go and talk it over with the rest of the family, and—Ellery, I just couldn't stand it! Besides, I was in a hurry. I wanted to get home—I never should have come down this morning if it hadn't been for those wretched plates! But I didn't want to be rude, you know, nor to hurt her feelings, nor anything like that, so I just thought of a—well, of a sort of ruse, you know."

"I see," mischievously commented Ellery; "you lacerated your conscience rather than scratch her sensibilities."

"Well, I tried to,—but I hadn't counted on Aunt Julia! You see, we were just at the entrance of the Silverbrand Hotel when she overtook me, and it seemed so easy! So when she asked where I was going, I said I was going shopping, but first I was going to see a friend who was staying at the Silverbrand—thinking, of course, that I could simply walk through the hotel—in at Fifth Avenue and out at the side street, you know. She'd never be the wiser, and it would save a lot of wear and tear on my nervous system."

Jordan smiled broadly and shook his head. "You don't know Aunt Julia!" he chuckled.

"Oh yes, I do—now! She said she'd go in with me, and if my friend wasn't there we'd go shopping together."

"Every time!" murmured Aunt Julia's nephew.

"Well, there I was!"

"Hoist by your own petard," he suggested.

"Precisely! Of course after that there was nothing to do but walk in there and send up my card to somebody—anybody,—and when word came back that the lady was not staying at the hotel, express polite surprise and walk out again."

"With Aunt Julia!" That Jordan was enjoying the recital was obvious.

"With Aunt Julia. Then, also of course, we weren't inside the door before she asked my friend's name. Well, naturally my friend had to have a name, and on the spur of the moment I said Mrs. Lancaster Welles. I don't know why I said that!" she cried, turning toward him with expressively wide-stretched arms. "It was just fate! I didn't know there was a Mrs. Lancaster Welles! I wondered at the time why that particular name occurred to me. I suppose now that I must have heard you mention it sometime and that it stuck in my wretched memory, minus any connection. Anyway, that's what I said, and I called a boy and sent my card to Mrs. Lancaster Welles."

"And when word came back that she was not in the hotel, you left an invitation to dinner, to be given to her when she should arrive, just by way of nailing Aunt Julia's conviction, and now you're doing penance for the taradiddle," supplied Jordan, who was somewhat familiar with the intricacies of his wife's conscience.

"Oh, my land! If I only had! Ellery,"—again Tragedy loomed,—"that boy came back and said that Mrs. Welles would see me in her room!"

"Great Cæsar!" Jordan straightened up and stared at her. "You don't mean to say she was there?"

"She was there! Naturally, I couldn't run away then."

Her husband gave way to peals of mirth.

"You had to live up to Aunt Julia's expectations, not to mention the boy's—and Mrs. Welles's!" he exclaimed. "Heavens! Louise, why don't you laugh? Can't you see how funny it is?"

"Wait!"—ominously. "Just wait!"

"Don't tell me Aunt Julia went with you!"