A modern trio in an old townHaviland-Taylor, Katharine
General
A modern trio in an old town
Haviland-Taylor, Katharine
Americans -- Italy -- Fiction; Florence (Italy) -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
When Mr. Wake spoke he said, “You--haven’t changed--” and he did it
between two gulps and after a deep breath.
Miss Sheila, who covered her feelings more easily than Mr. Wake, said
“Nonsense, I have gray hair, and wrinkles--”
“No--” Mr. Wake shook his head. “No--” he said again.
She smiled at him, and her lips quivered.
“You,” she said, “can still say pretty things, can’t you?”
“To you, Sheila,” he answered, and then I thought that Sam and I ought
to move on. I said so in an aside to Sam, who was acting as if he were
sitting in an aisle seat and twisting his program into funny shapes
while he waited--in great suspense--for the hero to get the girl just
before the drop of the last curtain. I think men are much too natural
at times, and that was one of them.
After I had touched Sam’s arm, and frowned at him, and said, “_Come
on_,” in a sibilant whisper, we went up to the house, and into the big,
living hall and stood there to drain.
“Gosh,” said Sam, after I had taken off my hat and was wiping poppy
stains from my face--my hat was ruined; the colors of my cheap flowers
had run from the rain. . . . “Gosh, wasn’t that simply _great_! My
gosh, did _you see his face_?”
“Naturally,” I said, because I was so worked up and excited that it
made me feel snappish.
“Well, you needn’t be cutting,” said Sam as he tiptoed over to a window
from which he could see Miss Sheila and Mr. Wake, who were about a
block away down by the garden gate. “My soul,” he commented, after he
had looked out, “I’ll say that’s quick work! Didn’t know he had it in
him--_great hat_!”
“You shouldn’t spy on them, it isn’t fair,” I stated as I joined him.
But we did look for a moment more, at those two people who stood
outdoors, under the savage assaults of that raging storm, but who
felt--I’m certain--as if they were favored by the happiest skies of a
clear June day.
“Come on, Sam,” I ordered and turned.
“Gosh ding it,” he asked as he followed me (“Gosh ding it” is his most
intense expression), “wasn’t it _wonderful_?”
“Um hum--” I murmured.
“Are you soaked, dear?”
“A little damp,” I admitted.
“I’ll get Maria to make us some tea,” said Sam, “and I’ll take you up
to Mr. Wake’s room, and you can shed that once-perky, now depressed
frock and put on one of his dressing gowns. And then come down, and
we’ll toast you up before the fire I make while you change--”
“All right,” I agreed.
“This way, dear--” he said then, and I went with him up a twisting
stairs that had a wrought-iron balustrade, over which was growing a
vine that had its feet in a brick colored jardiniere. . . . It was a
very, very pretty house, and more than that. It was built for comfort
too. There were soft, deep low chairs all around, and ash trays on tiny
tables, and magazines, and books--hundreds of books in every room--I
kept thinking of how Miss Sheila would like it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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