Harriet and the Piper | Page 4

once.
"Betty went home for a tub," Nina explained. "She's coming back. But,
Mother," she added, with a faintly reproachful and whining intonation,
"really, you ought to be there--"
Mrs. Carter knew this as well as Nina. But she found the child
extremely trying in this puritanical mood. Granting that this affair with
Tony did her, Isabelle, small credit, at least it was not for Nina to sit in
judgment. Rebellious, Isabelle fondled the loving nose of the hound
with a small, brown, jewelled hand, and glanced dubiously at Tony's
uncompromising back.
"Trot back, Nina love," said she to her daughter, cheerfully, "and ask
Miss Harriet to come out and pour. I'll be there directly. We'll come
right up. Run along!"

To Nina, in this ignominious dismissal, there was sweet. She adored
"Miss Harriet," the Miss Field who had been her governess and her
mother's secretary for the three happiest years of Nina's somewhat
sealed young life. It would be "fun" to have Miss Field pour. Nina
leaped obediently up the steps, with a flopping of thick braids and the
scrape of sturdy shoes, and the sweet summer world was in silence
again.
Isabelle sat on, stroking the hound, her soul filled with perplexity. The
shadows were lengthening, the shafts of sunlight more bold and clear.
The hound, surprised at the silence, whined faintly.
"I wish it might have been Nina!" Isabelle said. Anthony's eloquent
back gave her sudden understanding of his fury. She got up, and went
noiselessly toward him, and she felt a shudder shake him as she slipped
her hand into his arm. "Ah, please, Tony," she pleaded, "what can I
do?"
"Nothing!" he answered, suddenly pliant. "Nothing, of course." And he
turned to her a boyish face stern with pain. "Of course you can do
nothing, Cherie. I'm not such a--such a FOOL--"his voice broke
angrily--"that I can't see that! Come on, we'll go up and have tea--with
the Bellamys. And I--I'll be going to-night. I'll say good-bye to you
now--and perhaps you'll be good enough to make my good-byes to the
others--"
The youthfulness of it did not rob it of real dignity. Isabelle, wretchedly
mounting the steps beside him, felt her heart contract with real pain. He
would go away--it would all be over and forgotten in a few weeks--and
yet, how she longed to comfort him, to make him happy again!
She looked obliquely at his set face, and what she saw there made her
feel ashamed.
On the bright level of the upper terrace tea was merrily in progress. In
the streaming afternoon light the scene was strikingly cheerful and
pretty: the wide wicker chairs with their gay cretonne cushions, the
over-shadowing green trees in heavy leaf, the women's many-coloured

gowns and the men's cool whites and grays. On the broad white
balustrade Isabelle's great peacock was standing, with his tail fanned to
its amazing breadth; two maids, in their crisp black and white, were
coming and going with silver and china on their trays.
Miss Field had duly come down to preside, and all was well. Isabelle,
as she dropped into a chair, gave a sigh of relief; everyone was amused
and absorbed and happy. Everyone, that is, except the magnificent and
sharp-eyed old lady who sat, regally throned, near her, and favoured
her immediately with a dissatisfied look. Old Madame Carter had her
own good reasons for being angry, and she never spared any one
available from a participation in her mood.
She was remarkably handsome, even at seventy-five; with a crown of
puffed white hair, gold-rimmed eyeglasses, and an erect and finely
preserved figure. Her silk gown flowed over her knees, and formed a
rich fold about her shining slippers; a wide lace scarf was about her
shoulders, and she wore an old-fashioned watchchain of heavy braided
gold, and a great many handsome pins and rings. Her voice was
theatrically deep and clear, and her manner vigorous and impressive.
"Well, my dear, your friends were naturally wondering what important
matter kept their hostess away from her guests," she began. Isabelle had
not been her daughter-in-law for more than twenty years for nothing.
She shrugged and smiled carelessly, with an indifferent glance at the
group. Ward's friends, the tennis- players, and old Doctor and Mrs.
Potter and their niece, from next door. Nobody here of any especial
importance!
"Harriet is managing very nicely," Isabelle said, contentedly, as Tony,
with a sombre face and averted eyes, brought her her tea.
"So Ward seems to think," observed Ward's grandmother with acidity.
Isabelle laughed indifferently. Her son, slender and tall, and with
something of her own eagerness and fire in his sunburned young face,
was beside Miss Field, who talked to him in a quiet aside while she
busied herself with cups and spoons.

"Perfectly safe