Page:Weird Tales Volume 5 Number 4 (1925-04).djvu/85

 She poured herself another cup of tea.

“You and I are going to take a walk with Boris and Andrei tonight” she said, all at once, as if she had made up her mind to something. “We’ll go up across the subway bridge back of the house, and down by the old Burnham place which the princess has taken. Wolves for pets—it’s strange.”

Her inferences left me deeply stirred. It was if she had made a conclusion that she could not put into words. She did not mention the matter again, changing the subject to one of summer clothes, which she thought we’d better be thinking about soon, for spring would shortly be upon us.

After breakfast, Portia went to her room, leaving me again to my own devices. I began to realize that I was going to be very much alone, and that it might be wise on my part to associate myself with some church in the vicinity, in order to form a little circle of acquaintances. I thought it would only be decent, under the circumstances, for me to make a little call on Mrs. Differdale and her daugherdaughter [sic], and make the inquiry of them; they would undoubtedly be fully advised as to what churches were nearest, and what their denominations were. About half past 3 o’clock, then, I went out, leaving word with Fu Sing (Portia had apparently gone to sleep again to make up for her night’s wakefulness) that I would return about 5.

I walked up Elm Street, Mrs. Differdale stood on the porch steps, wrapped in a shawl. In the cellar-area, holding a pair of her husband’s old trousers about her head, the suspenders dangling strangely about her ears, stood Aurora Arnold, absorbedly listening to Gus Stieger. When Mrs. Arnold caught sight of me, she rightly inferred that I was about to call, and disappeared into the cellar with her interesting and original head-dress hastily pulled down out of sight. Her mother did not see me until I was almost at the foot of the steps. I could hear Gus plainly.

“Meat. Great hunks of bloody meat, she orders for the wolves,” he was saying with unction. “Big gray fellows they are, that snarl and bare their yellow teeth at you. I’ll say I’d hate to be near if one of ’em got out. How do, Miss Delorme?”

He touched his hat hastily, crossed to the curb, mounted his bicycle and rode away.

“Come right in, dear Miss Delorme,” Mrs. Differdale hastened to say cordially. “You’ll excuse my hair being in curlers, and my boudoir cap. I know. There’s a church sociable tonight, and you know, it’s one’s duty to look one’s best in the house of the Lord.”

As she ushered me in at the front door, her daughter rushed up the front stairs precipitately. She did not meet my eyes and I pretended not to have seen her. She was certainly a sight, curlers sticking out all over her head, and those trousers legs hanging down over her shoulders, suspenders dangling.

“Go right into the parlor, and I’ll call Aurora down, Miss Delorme. So glad you came of your own accord,” declared Mrs. Differdale, somewhat ambiguously I thought, “without waiting for a formal invitation. I did have some ironing to do, but perhaps it will be much better for me to sit here with you and chat. I can iron tonight. Oh, I forgot, there’s the sociable. Well, tomorrow will have to do,” she added graciously.

I hated to sit down, after what seemed to me hardly a cordial welcome.

“I’m really in a great hurry,” I prevaricated. “I just ran in to see if you could advise me what church is