And what would these good friends of Jerry’s have thought, if they could have seen him the next day?
He was sauntering homeward, after a game of rackets at his club, when his eye fell on Marie Louise’s carriage standing before the door of a celebrated jeweler’s. The carriage was perfectly unmistakable even to one less interested than Orvice. It was a black brougham, as much and as brilliantly picked out in white as it could be, with white cushions. It needed, as Prixley had observed, only a pair of zebras in the pole and a pair of convicts on the box. Marie Louise, however, had contented herself with two enormous white horses, which showed blue-white between the bands of heavy black harness; her liveries were almost white, braided in black. She herself admired the result enormously, and never doubted that the numbers of her fellow creatures who turned to stare after her equipage were actuated by admiration and envy.
Seeing this remarkable vehicle, Orvice at once turned into the shop, and stood for some seconds at Miss Carman’s elbow, before she raised her eyes from a tray of jewels spread out before her and saw him. Her manner was as cheerful as ever, but Orvice observed that she had been crying.
“Who do you think is engaged?” she began, at once, shoving all the jewels back at the salesman, as if they had been pebbles. “Bobby Peters!”
“What, not the only man who Not really?”
She nodded. “He is going to marry one of my best friends, and I am going on to the wedding. I’m going to take a large party in a private car. Will you come?”
“I don’t know that I ought to lend myself to any such scheme,” said Orvice. “I believe you are just going in order to catch his eye at the altar and make him regret his choice. The best women are so revengeful.”
“How can you think me so spiteful?” she returned. “Anyhow, I don’t believe I could. He probably thinks her much nicer, and so she is. No, I’m just going for the fun of showing Stonehurst what I can do. Of course, I should like to make the president of the Institute, and all the Park Slope people, feel badly, if I could.”
“And you think I shall contribute to that effect. How very flattering!”
“Oh, I know you will,” she returned, now turning her back to the counter and resting her elbows on the edge of it, so that the salesman, discouraged, moved a little away. “They never saw anything in the least like you in Stonehurst. Will you come?”
Jerry looked at her gravely. “I will,” he said, “if you will assure me that it is not for Bobby Peters that you have been shedding tears.”
“For Bobby Peters?” she retorted, coloring slowly. “How absurd! Wait until you see him. Oh, no, but it is a lot of care and worry—having money.”
“My tradespeople tell me the same thing about not having it.”
She seemed eager to change the subject, and invited his attention to a wedding-present.
She wanted, she said, to give them something really handsome, but she was afraid that if she gave the bride jewels it would look as if she had left Bobby out on purpose. She did not want any one to think she was piqued. Of course, there was always silver, but that was so ordinary.
Ordinary, Orvice returned, trying to put his mind on the problem, and for people who kept few servants, hard to keep clean, or so his mother was always telling him.
Marie Louise doubted if the Peterses would keep any servants.
In view of this fact, Orvice could not feel that her final choice of a tall silver and gold cup, set with white and yellow topazes, was the most appropriate, but Marie Louise scorned his criticism.
“Oh, no, of course it won't be useful,” she said; “and I don’t mean it to be. I think it is horrid because people are poor that every one always gives them ugly things—well, useful things, then. It is just like getting school-books for a Christmas present. Now she'll have one pretty thing in the house, and, let me tell you, she'll get a good deal more pleasure out of it than if | had furnished the kitchen for her.”
He declined her offer of a lift home, and went on his way chuckling internally. Marie Louise was always a new experience to him. He never saw her without experiencing a profound and affectionate amusement; a sort of tenderness and mirth that put him in excellent temper with the world.
He and his mother lunched very cheerfully together, until, toward the end of lunch, he remarked casually:
“Well, mother, I’m going on a triumph before long.”
“I am very glad to hear you have anything to feel triumphant about,” Mrs. Orvice replied genially.