Julia The Apostate | Page 4

snap--and it does now."
"How can you?" She looked reproachfully at him.
"And I tell you this, Cousin Jule: neither of those girls will ever get up a color like that!"
She shook her head, but she was not displeased. He took out a fat chocolate-colored cigar and fingered it wistfully.
"I suppose I mustn't smoke?" he queried.
Her quick answer surprised herself.
"I should hope you could, if that woman can!"
"Which one?"
"That Mrs. Ranger, the one near the samovar--that big brass thing. Liz--Elise didn't introduce her to you. They don't introduce people the way they do at home, Cousin Lorando--I hope you didn't mind. They think it's awkward."
"Oh, Lord, no, I don't mind. I can spare her, anyway. She's checked up too high for me. But she can look you through pretty thoroughly, can't she?"
"She writes books," Miss Trueman returned, the finality of her tone indicating that she had explained any possible idiosyncrasy of the lady in question.
"Oh, I see. And the little red-haired one, does she write books, too?"
"No; she's an artist. She smokes too, though. Not cigars, like yours, but cigarettes. She's supposed to be a very good painter, but she doesn't make what Carrie--lyn makes. The girls have very good positions in Miss Abrams' school."
"Um, what do they get, now?"
Miss Trueman mentioned the modest sum with pride.
"And then with my money and what we get from the rent of the place--the girls and I each have a third, you know--we do very nicely."
"So you rented the place?"
"Yes, Cousin Lorando, though I hated to. But I wouldn't sell it, though they wanted me to. I just couldn't."
"I know."
He lighted his cigar and puffed at it in meditative silence for a moment, while the babble from the parlor floated in with the odor of the Ceylon tea and cigarettes.
"That's what I came about, Cousin Jule--the old place. You may think it's queer, for I never lived there but two years once, when father and your Uncle Joe farmed it on shares; but those two years just made it home to me. Of course Uncle Joe wasn't any real relation of mine, and you-all weren't my real cousins, but it was the only family I ever had, so to say, and I loved every one of you. Then we moved back into town; but you know I came in every week or so, and Aunt Martha used to have my room in the attic ready for me, just the same."
"Yes, I know; Aunt Martha never forgot you, Cousin Lorando."
"Well, it's fifteen years since I saw the old place, and a lot's happened since then, I tell you. First place, I'm a rich man, Cousin Jule.
"Oh, I don't mean one of these multi-millionaires you have about here, for I haven't even seven figures opposite my name; but short of that I did very well for myself out West there, and I earned it all fair, too--though I was pretty lucky, and that counts.
"Anyhow, never mind about that. Only I've got enough to have anything I want, and to give my friends something, too. So as soon as I got back. East I went straight down to the farm. But it was all shut up and a kind of green hedge where the fence used to be, and I judged it was sold, and I felt pretty sore about it, so I came right away."
"They only come there in June," Miss Trueman explained, "and they go back before Thanksgiving."
"Yes. Well, I didn't know that."
He waited again for a few seconds, and Miss Trueman sat in respectful silence till he should continue.
"You see, I'd been East once before, eight years ago, but I didn't see the farm then," he said finally.
"I got married while I was West."
His audience of one started slightly.
"She's dead now," he added abruptly.
"Oh, Cousin Lorando--"
"You needn't bother about the sympathy, my dear, for there's none needed. I hadn't been with her for a good while. I saw her in a concert-hall out there, and she had curly hair and a kind of taking way with her, and so I married her. I'd just made a big hit, and she wanted to come to New York, and we came. We went to a big hotel, and it was dress-suits for me and diamonds for her, and we drove in a carriage in the park in the afternoon. She liked it, but I soon got enough. I don't care much for that sort of thing. She wanted to go to the theatre and see the girls that she'd been one of, you see, from the other side of the curtain. And she saw a man there she used to know, and--well, it turned out she liked him better, that's all."
"Oh, Cousin Lorando, how terrible--for her!"
"Um, yes. She didn't think it was specially terrible, I guess, though.