Richard was glad to see Melinda, and Melinda was glad to see Richard--so
glad that she gave him a hearty kiss, prefacing the act with the remark,
"I can kiss you, now you are a married man."
Richard liked the kiss, and liked Melinda's frank, open manner, which
had in it nothing Van Burenish, as he secretly termed the studied
elegance of Mrs. Richard Markham's style. Melinda was natural, and he
promptly kissed her back, feeling that in doing so he was guilty of
nothing wrong, for he would have done the same had Ethelyn been present.
She had a terrible headache, he said, in answer to Melinda's inquiry,
and perhaps she did not feel able to come down. He would see.
The hot water and Eunice's bathing had done Ethelyn good, and, with the
exception that she was very pale, she looked bright and handsome, as she
lay upon the pillows, with her loose hair forming a dark, glossy frame
about her face.
"You are better, Ethie," Richard said, bending over her, and playfully
lifting her heavy hair. "Eunice has done you good. She's not so bad,
after all."
"Eunice is well enough in her place," was Ethelyn's reply; and then
there was a pause, while Richard wondered how he should introduce
Melinda Jones.
Perhaps it was vain in him, but he really fancied that the name of Jones
was distasteful to Ethelyn, just as the Van Buren name would have been
more distasteful to him than it already was had he known of Frank's love
affair. And to a certain extent he was right. Ethelyn did dislike to
hear of the Joneses, whom she heartily despised, and her brow grew
cloudy at once when Richard said, bunglingly, and as if it were not at
all what he had come up to say: "Oh, don't you remember hearing me speak
of Melinda Jones, whom I hoped you would like? She is very kind to
mother--we all think a great deal of her; and though she knows it is
rather soon to call, she has come in for a few minutes, and would like
to see you. I should be so glad if you would go down, for it will
gratify her, I know, and I really think we owe her something--she has
always been so kind."
But Ethelyn was too tired, and her head ached too hard to see visitors,
she said; and besides that, "Miss Jones ought to have known that it was
not proper to call so soon. None but a very intimate friend could
presume upon such a thing."
"And Melinda is an intimate friend," Richard answered, a little warmly,
as he left his wife, and went back to Melinda with the message, that
"some time she should be happy to make Miss Jones' acquaintance, but
to-night she really must be excused, as she was too tired to come down."