XXIX

Fannie Page tilted the side of her face to her husband’s casual kiss, as she went on reading her letters. “Frances says little Francie’s been chosen to be Wild Rose in the school play,” she told him across his fence of newspaper. “She’s making her a costume of pink and green crêpe paper⁠—seems to me studying’s the last thing they think of in school nowadays. Elizabeth says as far as she can see the twins never do anything but model in clay and sing folk-songs. Let’s see. Both Freddie’s front teeth are out. Poor little fellow, how funny he must look! What’s the matter with your canteloupe, dear? Isn’t it good? I told that man⁠—”

“Where’s Pren?”

“He had breakfast earlier. He’s going to Springfield with the Bangs boys, I only hope they don’t break down and have to be towed home again. I told him I’d tell you he’d taken the automobile, I knew you wouldn’t mind.”

“Well, I do mind.”

“No, you don’t.” She heaved her violet billows out of her chair, and came around to kiss the bald place on the top of his head. She must remember to get him some more hair tonic⁠—not that it seemed to do much good.

“Have another cup of coffee⁠—of course, it won’t hurt you. Mary, ask Ella for some hot waffles.”

“Here’s about my speech at the banquet, Fannie.”

“Mmm⁠—”

“Well, if you aren’t interested⁠—”

“What? Oh, darling, I am, intensely interested!”

“What in?” he asked suspiciously.

“Well, to tell you the truth, Prentice, I wasn’t listening, I was reading a letter from Margery, and guess who she’s met! Victor Campion! Did you ever? Listen⁠—

“ ‘Betty and I went to a dinner before a dance at the Century Club, I wore my candleshade⁠—’ ”

“Her what?”

“Oh, her pink dress with the crystal fringe⁠—let’s see⁠—‘and split the skirt again⁠—’

“Tc! Why will they try to dance in hobble skirts? Wait, where is it that she tells about Victor?

“ ‘I had something aged but sprightly on one side of me, named Mr. Victor Campion. When I say sprightly, I mean he’s the kind that’s still begging for a rosebud; and one of the other men told me at the dance that after dinner he told them the world’s mildest limerick about a split skirt that he evidently considered absolutely devilish. He was pretty old for the party, but Betty says everybody uses him for filling in, though the debutantes groan when they get next him; and, of course, he’s not exactly thrilling. She says he’s a regular town institution, you haven’t properly come out until Mr. Campion comes to your tea and says ‘What charming blossoms and what still more charming buds!’ You’ll see he really is old when I tell you he says he knew you when you were a girl⁠—Well!”

“A polite daughter you have!”

“Now, Prentice, of course, we seem a thousand to those young things⁠—just a lit‑tle bit of egg on your chin, darling!

“ ‘He seemed inclined to give me a rush at the dance⁠—and, oh, Mother, his idea of the Boston! Hop is no word for it! He’s much worse than Daddy. But a perfect peach from Princeton who was on my other side came to my rescue⁠—’

“Prentice, why do you suppose Victor Campion never married?”

“Oh, I don’t know. He was too much of a spoiled baby, I guess, first his mother and then his sisters, always protecting him and admiring him until he was too tender to do anything but run home and hide, when anything real started to happen to him. And then he was supposed to be pretty much cut up over Lucy Hawthorn, wasn’t he?”

“Yes, I guess he was; but mercy, that was ages ago, and she certainly wasn’t the only pebble on the beach. And anyway, no man’s going to be faithful to one woman all his life if she’s out of reach⁠—you needn’t tell me! Women do, but not men⁠—it isn’t their nature. No, I guess he just wasn’t the marrying kind, or else as you say they made him too comfortable at home.”

Prentice made a vague conversational sound, his eyes straying to his newspaper, but Fannie went on, interested:

“You know it isn’t only Victor himself, but I believe the girls wouldn’t have been old maids if it hadn’t been for him. Maggie never said so, but everyone knew she broke her engagement so she could stay and take care of him; and they never could go anywhere or have pretty clothes or anything, because everything had to be spent on Victor. You can’t exactly blame him for being selfish, they never gave him a chance to be anything else. Did they? Did they, Prentice?”

“Mm,” said Prentice, reading.

“Mother always said Mrs. Campion would have married again if it hadn’t been for Victor. I remember there was someone. Mrs. Campion came to see Mother one day, and cried and said Victor was so sensitive he needed especially tender treatment, and Father said afterwards he needed a hairbrush applied to the seat of his trousers.”

“That’s about right.”

“Well, it seems queer to think of such a mild little man as Victor Campion having any influence on anybody. But I can’t help feeling sorry for him. An old bachelor seems so sad, somehow. Sort of forlorn. And can you imagine⁠—even imagine life without any children, Prentice?”

“I can easily, and it sounds like a paradise of peace.”

“Oh, go on! Skidoo!” she cried, slapping him affectionately.

“Fannie! What language!”

“Well, it’s what Pren and Bobby say all the time⁠—‘twenty-three, skidoo.’ ” She returned his goodbye kiss, as she put a pansy in his buttonhole, and then went back for just one more waffle with butter and maple syrup. She knew she oughtn’t to eat waffles, she was so fat. Elizabeth was always telling her so. “You mustn’t let yourself go to seed, Mother.” Oh, well! She poured out just a little more coffee, with three lumps and cream.

Victor Campion! Poor old thing! She was sorry for the girls, too. Isabel Leaf said they had had a dreadful time, with May’s suicide, and being poor, and having to sell The Maples. The Maples without the Campions, the Campions without The Maples⁠—impossible to imagine! “We used to have such fun there!” she thought. “Poor old Maggie! It would be nice to ask her to Hartford for a visit⁠—give her a good rest, and feed her up.” She would do it sometime⁠—or at least she would if ever a time came when she wasn’t too occupied with her family. The family came first, of course.

Poor Maggie! Poor Lily! Poor Victor! Never to marry, never to have children and grandchildren⁠—how awful! No one to love. Perhaps, she had gone to seed, as Elizabeth said, but what did it matter, when such fresh young flowers were springing up so thickly around her?

Her thoughts floated from the Campions to little Francie in her wild rose costume⁠—to the dress she was embroidering for Elizabeth’s baby⁠—the day’s menus⁠—Pren would be bringing the Bangs boys home for dinner⁠—Bobby back from Andover tomorrow⁠—the sunshine wrapping her feet in soft warm gold⁠—the pot of pansies on the breakfast table. One was dead, and in her mind she stretched out her hand and pinched it off, but her body was too comfortable to move. She sank into an agreeable torpor.

Victor lay in his bath, dreamily blowing bubbles. Nice to sleep late and dawdle over dressing on Sunday morning. “ ‘Oh, waltz me around again, Willie.’ ” he sang, making a beautiful lather.

“ ‘Around, around, around!
The music so dreamy, like peaches and creamy⁠—’ ”

He was going to do exercises every morning⁠—that was the way to keep fit. Sunday was the day to be lazy, but he’d start tomorrow. Twenty minutes brisk exercises every morning⁠—what if it did mean getting up a little earlier? The very thought made him feel as glowing and strong-willed as if he had gone through them already.

“ ‘Oh, Willie Fitzgibbons he used to sell ribbons,
And stand up all day on his feet⁠—’ ”

Where was his blue tie with the cream-colored dots?

“ ‘He got very spoony on Madeleine Mooney⁠—’ ”

Last night he had come home old and tired. The dinner had been hard work. He had told all his funniest stories, and waited with an ear anxiously cocked for the laughter that did not come. Polite, vague smiles⁠—“Oh, that’s perfect!” And afterwards, at the dance! No one really danced any more.

But at home again, where all things⁠—the burning lamp, the doughnuts and milk waiting under a napkin on the hall table, his turned-back bed, light, and food, and rest⁠—were symbols of love for him, he revived, he grew happy again.

Maggie was watering her plants in the bay window. A rubber bulb sprinkler filled itself⁠—blub-blub-blub⁠—in a pail of warm water standing on the newspapers spread on the floor under the dripping fringe of ivy, and the room was full of sunshine and the fragrance of sprinkled geraniums.

“You sound as lively as a cricket. Have a good time last night? Wait, I’ll bring in your breakfast⁠—”

She loved Sunday mornings, when she could let him sleep late, when he had time to talk with her as he lingered over his breakfast. She made him a brown and gold puff of omelet while he was eating his orange, and brought it in to him still sputtering and heaving.

“Guess who I sat next at dinner⁠—Fannie Leaf’s daughter, the youngest one. She’s visiting Robert and Isabel.”

“Fannie Leaf’s daughter! Well, I never! What’s she like?”

“A pretty little thing⁠—looks the way Fannie used to, pink cheeks and dimples and curly light hair.”

“Well, wasn’t that nice for her, to sit next you and have you know her mother and father and everything⁠—here, let me give you some more coffee. Did she give you any news of Fannie and Prentice?”

“Some new grandchildren since last we heard. A grandmother! Poor old Fannie, I bet she doesn’t like that. Makes her sound pretty old, don’t it?”

“It don’t seem possible. I always think of her the way she was on her wedding day, so slender and laughing⁠—the prettiest bride I ever saw, I think, and the youngest looking. But Isabel Leaf says she’s aged awfully, and gotten so fat and settled⁠—what do you want? Matches? Wait a minute, I’ll get them for you. Well, I can’t get over how nice it was for her having you for a partner!”

“She’s not much of a dancer, though. We didn’t get on very well together.”

“Well, if she couldn’t dance with you, she couldn’t dance with anyone.”

He went happily into the living-room, to the sunshine and the Sunday papers. Last night he had been hurt by Margery Page’s straying attention, vague answers, and frequent stiffenings of the jaw that meant yawns suppressed. She had had plenty to say to the Princeton sophomore on her other side, plenty of things to giggle about. And although she and Victor certainly had not gotten on very well when they were dancing together, he had seen her swooping and dipping almost professionally with other partners. But no matter what suspicion stole on him in the outside world that he was not as young as he used to be, that he was not as fascinating as he wanted to be, at home where they loved and admired him so he found the Fountain of Youth.

He hunted out the funny papers, and lit a fresh cigarette. She had been as pretty as a picture, with all those yellow curls. Perhaps, she had just been shy with an older man, “A man of the world,” he thought rather complacently. He hadn’t anything especial to do today⁠—he might go in to Wilmington after lunch and call on her. It would be polite, and she would be pleased.