Page:O Genteel Lady! (1926).pdf/69

 'Wonderful, wasn't it?' she asked Lanice.

'Oh, yes, Cousin Poggy, and wasn't it wonderful that Mr. Fox came and asked me...'

'Mr. Fox? Who permitted him? This is insufferable, an intrusion. Mr. Fox at our meeting! I had no idea...'

'I let him in. He wanted some of the Nautilus Madeira, you know, the wine that was sent back in the Nautilus when it carried food to Madeira during their famine. And so...'

'He dared to come begging for alcohol at such a time! Oh, if he only could have heard our Mrs. Morgan, that noble woman! Why, her lowest plane is as high above Mr. Fox's highest as God is higher than the angels! Oh, Cousin Lanice, dear child. It is such men who are our deepest, darkest enemies. They take us for—for toys, baubles. To think he begged for alcohol in the very house and the very evening that Mrs. Morgan spoke!'

'He heard her talking; that is why he wanted to come in. He sat in back almost hidden in the Beacon Street window. But Miss Purse angered him by saying that perhaps Homer was a female, and he twisted about so much I took him out and gave him some Madeira.'

'The low, sottish cur, poking into our business.'

'But he isn't low. He is so gifted! And this morning I'm going to see him, and if he likes my sketches he is going to hire me to draw for "Hearth and Home," fashion plates even. I'm overjoyed.'

There was a long, difficult pause. Pauline elabo-