The Business of Life

Jacqueline had waited tea for him; the table was in the library, kettle simmering over the silver lamp; and the girl was standing before the fire, one foot on the fender, her hands loosely linked behind her back.

She glanced up with unfeigned pleasure as his step sounded outside along the stone hallway; and the smile still remained, curving her lips, but died out in her eyes, as Mrs. Hammerton marched in, halted, and stared at her unwinkingly.

Desboro presented them; Jacqueline came forward, offering a shy hand to Aunt Hannah, and, bending her superb young head, looked down into the beady eyes which were now fairly electric with intelligence.

Desboro began, easily:

"I asked Mrs. Hammerton to have tea with – "

"I asked myself," remarked Aunt Hannah, laying her other hand over Jacqueline's – she did not know just why – perhaps because she was vain of her hands, as well as of her feet and "figger."

She seated herself on the sofa and drew Jacqueline down beside her.

"This young man tells me that you are cataloguing his grandfather's accumulation of ancient tin-ware."

"Yes," said Jacqueline, already afraid of her. And the old lady divined it, too, with not quite as much pleasure as it usually gave her to inspire trepidation in others.

Her shrill voice was a little modified when she said:

"Where did you learn to do such things? It's not usual, you know."

"You have heard of Jean Louis Nevers," suggested Desboro.

"Yes – " Mrs. Hammerton turned and looked at the girl again. "Oh!" she said. "I've heard Cary Clydesdale speak of you, haven't I?"

Jacqueline made a slight, very slight, but instinctive movement away from the old lady, on whom nothing that happened was lost.

"Mr. Clydesdale," said Mrs. Hammerton, "told several people where I was present that you knew more about antiquities in art than anybody else in New York since your father died. That's what he said about you."

Jacqueline said: "Mr. Clydesdale has been very kind to me."

"Kindness to people is also a Clydesdale tradition – isn't it, James?" said the old lady. "How kind Elena has always been to you!"

The covert impudence of Aunt Hannah, and her innocent countenance, had no significance for Jacqueline – would have had no meaning at all except for the dark flush of anger that mounted so suddenly to Desboro's forehead.

He said steadily: "The Clydesdales are very old friends, and are naturally kind. Why you don't like them I never understood."

"Perhaps you can understand why one of them doesn't like me, James."

"Oh! I can understand why many people are not crazy about you, Aunt Hannah," he said, composedly.

"Which is going some," said the old lady, with a brisk and unabashed employment of the vernacular. Then, turning to Jacqueline: "Are you going to give this young man some tea, my child? He requires a tonic."

Jacqueline rose and seated herself at the table, thankful to escape. Tea was soon ready; Aunt Hannah, whose capacity for browsing was infinite, began on jam and biscuits without apology. And Jacqueline and Desboro exchanged their first furtive glances – dismayed and questioning on the girl's part, smilingly reassuring on Desboro's. Aunt Hannah, looking intently into her teacup, missed nothing.

"Come to see me!" she said so abruptly that even Desboro started.

"I – I beg your pardon," said Jacqueline, not understanding.

"Come to see me in town. I've a rotten little place in a fashionable apartment house – one of the Park Avenue kind, which they number instead of calling it the 'Buena Vista' or the 'Hiawatha.' Will you come?"

"Thank you."

The old lady looked at her grimly:

"What does 'thank you' mean? Yes or no? Because I really want you. Don't you wish to come?"

"I would be very glad to come – only, you know, I am in business – and go out very little – "

"Except on business," added Desboro, looking Aunt Hannah unblushingly in the eye until she wanted to pinch him. Instead, she seized another biscuit, which Farris presented on a tray, smoking hot, and applied jam to it vigorously. After she had consumed it, she rose and marched around the room, passing the portraits and book shelves in review. Half turning toward Jacqueline:

"I haven't been in the musty old mansion for years; that young man never asks me. But I used to know the house. It was this sort of house that drove me out of Westchester, and I vowed I'd marry a New York man or nobody. Do you know, child, that there is a sort of simpering smugness about a house like this that makes me inclined to kick dents in the furniture?"

Jacqueline ventured to smile; Desboro's smile responded in sympathy.

"I'm going home," announced Aunt Hannah. "Good-bye, Miss Nevers. I don't want you to drive me, James; I'd rather have your man take me back. Besides, you've a train to catch, I understand – " She turned and looked at Jacqueline, who had risen, and they stood silently inspecting each other. Then, with a grim nod, as though partly of comprehension, partly in adieu, Aunt Hannah sailed out. Desboro tucked her in beside Vail. The latter being quite deaf, they talked freely under his very nose.

"James!"

"Yes, dear lady."

"You gave yourself away about Elena Clydesdale. Haven't you any control over your countenance?"

"Sometimes. But don't do that again before her! The story is a lie, anyway."

"So I've heard – from you. Tell me, James, do you think this little Nevers girl dislikes me?"

"Do you want her to?"

"No. You're a very clever young one, aren't you? Really quite an expert! Do you know, I don't think that girl would care for what I might have to offer her. There's more to her than to most people."

"How do you know? She scarcely spoke a word."

The old lady laughed scornfully:

"I know people by what they don't say. That's why I know you so much better than you think I do – you and Elena Clydesdale. And I don't think you're much good, James – or some of your married friends, either."

She settled down among the robes, with a bright, impertinent glance at him. He shrugged, standing bareheaded by the mud-guard, a lithe, handsome young fellow. " – A Desboro all over," she thought, with a mental sniff of admiration.

"Are you going to speak to Miss Nevers?" she asked, abruptly.

"About what!"

"About employing me, you idiot!"

"Yes, if you like. If she comes up here as my guest, she'll need a gorgon."

"I'll gorgon you," she retorted, wrathfully.