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Page 17
"All the more reason for you to treat her with respect." Burns's arm
barred the way.
Macauley stopped short with an unbelieving chuckle. Arthur Chester,
Winifred, his wife, and Martha Macauley, coming in from the dining-room
together, gazed with interest at the scene before them. Ellen, herself
smiling, looked at her husband rather as if she saw something in him she
had never seen before. For it was impossible not to perceive that he was
not joking as he prevented Macauley from reaching his wife.
"Great snakes! he's in earnest!" howled Macauley, stopping short. "He
won't let me kiss his wife, when I'm the husband of her sister. Go 'way,
man, and cool that red head of yours. Anybody'd think I was going to
elope with her!"
"Think what you like," Burns retorted, coolly, "so long as you keep your
distance with your foolery. You or any other man."
"Red, you're not serious!" This was Martha. "Can't you trust Ellen to
preserve her own--"
"Dead line? Yes--in my absence. When I'm on the spot I prefer to play
picket-duty myself. I may be eccentric. But that's one of my notions,
and I've an idea it's one of hers, too."
"Better get her a veil, you Turk."
Macauley walked away with a very red face, at which Burns unexpectedly
burst into a laugh, and his good humour came back with a rush.
"Look here, you people. Forget my heroics and come over to our house.
I'll give you something to take the taste of those idiotic little cakes
out of your hungry mouths. No refusals! I'm your best friend, Jim
Macauley, and you know it, so come along and don't act like a small boy
who's had his candy taken away from him. You've plenty of candy of your
own, you know."
He was his gay self again, and bore them away with him on the wave of his
boyish spirits. Across the lawn and into the house they went, the six,
and were conducted into the living-room and bidden settle down around the
fireplace.
"Start a fire, Jim, and get a bed of cannel going with a roar. You'll
find the stuff in that willow basket. Open all the windows, Ches. Then
all make yourselves comfortable and await my operations. I promise you
a treat--from my point of view."
And he rushed away.
"It's my private opinion," growled Macauley, beginning sulkily to lay
the fire, "that that fellow is off his head. He always did seem a trifle
cracked, and to-night he's certainly dippy. What's he going to do with a
fire, at 11 P.M., on a May evening, I'd like to know?"
"Whatever it is, it will be refreshing." Winifred Chester, reckless of
her delicate blue evening gown, curled herself up in a corner of the big
davenport and laid her head luxuriously down among the pillows. "Oh, I'm
so tired," she sighed. "Seems to me I never heard so many stupid things
said, in one evening, in my life."
Arthur Chester, having thrown every window wide--though he discreetly
drew the curtains over those which faced the street--sat down in a great
winged chair of comfortable cushioning, and stretched his legs in front
of him as far as they would go, his arms clasped behind his head. He also
drew a deep sigh of content.
"I don't recall," said he, wearily, "that I have sat down once during the
entire evening."
"How ridiculous!" cried Martha Macauley, bristling. "If you didn't, it
was your own fault. I took away hardly any chairs, and I arranged several
splendid corners just on purpose for those who wished to sit."
"As there were a couple of hundred people, and not over a couple of dozen
chairs--" began Chester, dryly.
But Martha interrupted him. "I never saw such a set. Just as if you
hadn't been going to affairs like this one all your lives,--and Ellen,
especially, must have been at hundreds of them in Washington,--and now
you're all disgusted with having to bear up under just one little
informal--"
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