He clasped his hands, pressed them till the fingers of one gouged the back of the other. Father was not a Uriah Heep. At Pilkings & Son's he had often "talked back" to some of his best customers. But now he would gladly have licked Mrs. Vance Carter's spatted shoes.
"No--oh, bring us some lettuce sandwiches and some orange pekoe. I don't think we care for any doughnuts," said Mrs. Carter, impatiently.
Father bolted again, and whispered to Mother, who stood where he had left her, "Lettuce sandwiches and tea, and for Heaven's sake make the tea taste as much like orange pekoe as you can."
The Applebys had no delicately adjusted rule about the thickness of bread in sandwiches. Sometimes Mother was moved to make them very dainty, very thin and trim. But now, because he was in such a fever to please the Carters, Father fairly slashed their last loaf of bread, and slapped in the lettuce, while Mother was drawing tea. In two minutes he was proudly entering with the service-tray. He set it down before the Carters; he fussed with a crumb on the table-cloth, with the rather faded crimson rambler in the ornate pressed-glass vase. Mrs. Carter glanced at him impatiently. He realized that he was being officious, and rushed away.
Mother was sitting by the wide kitchen table, which was scarred with generations of use of cleaver and bread-knife and steak-pounder. The kitchen door was open to the broad land, which flowed up to the sill in a pleasant sea of waving grass. But she was turned from it, staring apprehensively toward the tea-room. Round her swirled the heat from the stove, and restless flies lighted on her cheek and flew off at hectic tangents.
Father tiptoed up to her, smiling. "I've left the door open wide enough so you can see them," he whispered. "Come and take a look at them. Mrs. Vance Carter--gee! And her daughter's a mighty pretty girl--not that I think much of these blouses that are cut so low and all."
Mother stopped short. Quiet as they were, they could distinctly hear the voices from the other room.
The Carter girl--she who was known as "Pig Carter" at Miss Severance's school--was snapping, "What in the world ever made you come to this frightful hole, mama?"
"Simply because I wanted to stop some place, and I really can't stand that mincing Miss Mitchin and her half-baked yearners and that odious creature with the beard and the ballet skirt, again."