Page:Temple Bailey--The Gay cockade.djvu/189

 As for myself, I was impatient for my high moment.

But I think I gave the old folks a good time and that they missed nothing in my manner. And, indeed, I think that they missed nothing in Rosalie's. They had the gentle complacency of the aged who bask in their own content.

It was toward the end of dinner that I caught a look in Rosalie's eyes which almost made my heart stop beating. I had not seen it since Perry's death. I had seen it first when she had stood in the door of his room on the night that I tucked him up in bed and gave him the hot oysters. It was that look of distaste—that delicate shrinking from an unpleasant spectacle.

Following her gaze I saw that the old gentleman had sunk in his chair and was gently nodding. His wife leaned toward me.

"Milton always takes a cat nap after meals," she said, smiling. And I smiled back, she was so rosy and round and altogether comfortable.

Rosalie and I went with them to the train, and it was as we drove back that I spoke of them.

"They are rather great dears, aren't they?"

Rosalie was vehement. "I hate old people!"

A chill struck to my bones. "You hate them? Why?"

"They're—ugly, Jim Crow. Did you see how 183