Andrew the Glad | Page 6

his plate, while he held a
large volume balanced on his knee, which he paused occasionally to
consult.
Mrs. Buchanan had telephoned that she would be home with her guest
at five o'clock and his mind was filled with pleasant anticipation. But
there was never a time with the major, no matter how filled the life was
around him with the excitement of events, with the echo of joy or woe,
the clash of social strife or the turmoil of vaster interests, when he
failed to be able to plunge into his books and lose himself completely.
He was in the act of consuming a remnant of a corn muffin and a draft
from his paper at the same time, when he heard a merry voice in
laughing greeting to Jeff, and the rose damask curtains that hung
between the breakfast room and the hall parted, and Phoebe stood
framed against their heavy folds. She was the freshest, most radiant,
tailor-made vision imaginable and the major smiled a large joyful smile
at the sight of her.
"Come in, come in, my dear; you are just in time for a hot muffin and a
fried chicken wing!" he exclaimed as he rose and drew her to the table.
The old volume crashed to the floor unheeded.
"Oh, no, Major, thank you, I couldn't think of it," exclaimed Phoebe.
"I'm lunching on a glass of malted milk and a raw egg these days. I lost
a pound and three-quarters last week and I feel so slim and graceful."
As she spoke she ran her hands down the charming lines of her tall

figure and turned slowly around for him to get the full effect of her loss.
She was most beautifully set up and the long lines melted into curves
where gracious curves ought to be.
"Nonsense, nonsense, Phoebe Donelson!" exclaimed the major. "Every
pound is an added charm. Sit here beside me." And he drew her into a
chair at the corner of the table.
In a twinkling of her black eyes Tempie had served her with the golden
muffins and crisp chicken. With a long sigh of absolute rapture Phoebe
resigned herself to the inevitable crash of her resolutions.
"Ah, I never was so miserable and so happy in all my life before," she
said. "I'm so hungry--and I'm so stout--and these muffins are wickedly
delicious."
"Phoebe," said the major sternly, "instead of starving yourself to death
you need to lie awake at night with lovers' troubles. Why, the summer I
courted Matilda I could have wrapped my belt around me twice. I have
never been portly since. It's loving you need, good, hard, miserable
loving. Didn't you ever hear of a 'lean and hungry lover'? Your conduct
is positively--have another muffin and this little slice of upper joint--I
say positively, unwomanly inhuman. Are there no depths of pity in
your breast? Is your bosom of adamant? When did you see David
Kildare? He is in a most pitiable condition. He left here not an hour ago
and I felt--"
"Don't worry over David, please, Major," said Phoebe as she paused
with a bit of buttered muffin suspended on the way to her white teeth.
"He is the most riotously--thank you, Tempie, just one more--happy
individual I know. What he wants he has, and he sees to it that he has
what he wants--to which add a most glorious leisure in which to want
and have."
"Phoebe, David Kildare has an aching void in his heart that weighs just
one hundred and thirty-six pounds, lacking now I believe one and
three-quarters pounds plus three muffins and a half chicken. How can
you be so heartless?" The major bent a benignly stern glance upon her

which she returned with the utmost unconcern.
"He did not see you all of yesterday or the day before and only once on
Monday, and then you--"
"That sounds like one of those rhyming calendars, my dear Major.
"Monday I am going far away, Tuesday I'll be busy all the day,
Wednesday is the day I study French, Thursday is the--"
and Phoebe hummed the little nonsense jingle to him in a most
beguiling manner.
The major laughed delightedly. "Phoebe, some day you will be held
responsible for David Kildare's--"
"But, my dear Major," interrupted Phoebe, "how could I be expected to
work all day for raiment and food, with malted milk and eggs at the
price they are now, and then be responsible for such a perfectly
irresponsible person as David Kildare? Why, just yesterday, while I
was writing up the Farrell débutante tea with the devil waiting at my
elbows for copy and the composing room in a stew, he called me twice
over the wire. He knew better, but didn't care."
"Still, my dear, still