"Oh, did you like it? We were very busy up there all the morning, Aunt
Isabelle and I and Susan Jenks."
"I felt like thanking Susan Jenks for the big bath towels; they seemed
to add the final perfect touch."
She laughed and repeated his remark to Aunt Isabelle.
"Think of his being grateful for bath towels, Aunt Isabelle."
After his presentation to Aunt Isabelle, he said, smiling: "And there was another touch--the big gray pussy cat. She was in the
window-seat, and when I sat down to look at the lights, she tucked her
head under my hand and sang to me."
"Pittiwitz? Oh, Aunt Isabelle, we left Pittiwitz up there. She
claims your room as hers," she explained to Roger. "We've had her for
years. And she was always there with father, and then with Constance
and me. If she's a bother, just put her on the back stairs and she
will come down."
"But she isn't a bother. It is very pleasant to have something alive
to bear me company."
The moment that his remark was made he was afraid that she might
interpret it as a plea for companionship. And he had no right----
What earthly right had he to expect to enter this charmed circle?
Susan Jenks came in with her arms full of wraps. "Mr. Porter's
coming," she said, "and it's eight o'clock now."
"We are going out----" Mary was interested to note that her lodger had
taken Aunt Isabelle's wrap, and was putting her into it without
self-consciousness.
Her own wrap was of a shimmering gray-green velvet which matched her
eyes, and there was a collar of dark fur.
"It's a pretty thing," Roger said, as he held it for her. "It's like
the sea in a mist."
She flashed a quick glance at him. "I like that," she said in her
straightforward way. "It is lovely. Aunt Frances brought it to me
last year from Paris. Whenever you see me wear anything that is
particularly nice, you'll know that it came from Aunt Frances--Aunt
Isabelle's sister. She's the rich member of the family. And all the
rest of us are as poor as poverty."
Outside a motor horn brayed. Then Porter Bigelow came in--a perfectly
put together young man, groomed, tailored, outfitted according to the
mode.
"Are you ready, Contrary Mary?" he said, then saw Roger and stopped.
Porter was a gentleman, so his manner to Roger Poole showed no hint of
what he thought of lodgers in general, and this one in particular. He
shook hands and said a few pleasant and perfunctory things. Personally
he thought the man looked down and out. But no one could tell what
Mary might think. Mary's standards were those of the dreamer and the
star gazer. What she was seeking she would never find in a Mere Man.
The danger lay however, in the fact that she might mistakenly hang her
affections about the neck of some earth-bound Object and call it an
Ideal.