When Mr. Mavick came over next day to spend Sunday in what was called in print the bosom of his family, he looked very much worn and haggard and was in an irritated mood. He had been very little in Newport that summer, the disturbed state of business confining him to the city. And to a man of his age, New York in midsummer in a panicky season is not a recreation.
The moment Mrs. Mavick got her husband alone she showed a lively solicitude about his health.
“I suppose it has been dreadfully hot in the city?”
“Has anything gone wrong? Has that odious Ault turned up again?”
“Turned up is the word. Half the time that man is a mole, half the time a bull in a china-shop. He sails up to you bearing your own flag, and when he gets aboard he shows the skull and cross-bones.”
“As bad as what? He is a bad lot, but he is just an adventurer--a Napoleon who will get his Waterloo before fall. Don't bother about things you don't understand. How are things down here?”
“Going swimmingly.” “So I judged by the bills. How is the lord?”
“Now don't be vulgar, Tom. You must keep up your end. Lord Montague is very nice; he is a great favorite here.”
“Yes, she likes him; she likes him very much.”
“No, she is awfully shy. And she is rather afraid of him, the big title and all that. And then she has never been accustomed to act for herself. She is old enough to be independent and to take her place in the world. At her age I was not in leading-strings.”
“Except in obedience to my mother,” continued Carmen, not deigning to notice the sarcasm. “And I've been thinking that McDonald--”
“What a brutal way of putting it! No. But if Evelyn is ever to be self-reliant it is time she should depend more on herself. You know I am devoted to McDonald. And, what is more, I am used to her. I wasn't thinking of her. You don't realize that Evelyn is a young lady in society, and it has become ridiculous for her to still have a governess. Everybody would say so.”
“Ah, don't you see it would be the same? She would still be under her influence and not able to act for herself.”
“What are you going to do? Turn her adrift after eighteen--what is it, seventeen?--years of faithful service?”
“How brutally you put it. I'm going to tell McDonald just how it is. She is a sensible woman, and she will see that it is for Evelyn's good. And then it happens very luckily. Mrs. Van Cortlandt asked me last winter if I wouldn't let her have McDonald for her little girl when we were through with her. She knew, of course, that we couldn't keep a governess much longer for Evelyn. I am going to write to her. She will jump at the chance.”