Miss Lulu Bett | Page 9

to Lulu. Monona came to him readily enough, staring, loose-lipped.
"I'll bet I'm your uncle," said Ninian.
Relationship being her highest known form of romance, Monona was thrilled by this intelligence.
"Give us a kiss," said Ninian, finding in the plural some vague mitigation for some vague offence.
Monona, looking silly, complied. And her uncle said my stars, such a great big tall girl--they would have to put a board on her head.
"What's that?" inquired Monona. She had spied his great diamond ring.
"This," said her uncle, "was brought to me by Santa Claus, who keeps a jewellery shop in heaven."
The precision and speed of his improvisation revealed him. He had twenty other diamonds like this one. He kept them for those Sundays when the sun comes up in the west. Of course--often! Some day he was going to melt a diamond and eat it. Then you sparkled all over in the dark, ever after. Another diamond he was going to plant. They say----He did it all gravely, absorbedly. About it he was as conscienceless as a savage. This was no fancy spun to pleasure a child. This was like lying, for its own sake.
He went on talking with Lulu, and now again he was the tease, the braggart, the unbridled, unmodified male.
Monona stood in the circle of his arm. The little being was attentive, softened, subdued. Some pretty, faint light visited her. In her listening look, she showed herself a charming child.
"It strikes me," said Ninian to Lulu, "that you're going to do something mighty interesting before you die."
It was the clear conversational impulse, born of the need to keep something going, but Lulu was all faith.
She closed the oven door on her pies and stood brushing flour from her fingers. He was looking away from her, and she looked at him. He was completely like his picture. She felt as if she were looking at his picture and she was abashed and turned away.
"Well, I hope so," she said, which had certainly never been true, for her old formless dreams were no intention--nothing but a mush of discontent. "I hope I can do something that's nice before I quit," she said. Nor was this hope now independently true, but only this surprising longing to appear interesting in his eyes. To dance before him. "What would the folks think of me, going on so?" she suddenly said. Her mild sense of disloyalty was delicious. So was his understanding glance.
"You're the stuff," he remarked absently.
She laughed happily.
The door opened. Ina appeared.
"Well!" said Ina. It was her remotest tone. She took this man to be a pedlar, beheld her child in his clasp, made a quick, forward step, chin lifted. She had time for a very javelin of a look at Lulu.
"Hello!" said Ninian. He had the one formula. "I believe I'm your husband's brother. Ain't this Ina?"
It had not crossed the mind of Lulu to present him.
Beautiful it was to see Ina relax, soften, warm, transform, humanise. It gave one hope for the whole species.
"Ninian!" she cried. She lent a faint impression of the double e to the initial vowel. She slurred the rest, until the y sound squinted in. Not Neenyun, but nearly Neenyun.
He kissed her.
"Since Dwight isn't here!" she cried, and shook her finger at him. Ina's conception of hostess-ship was definite: A volley of questions--was his train on time? He had found the house all right? Of course! Any one could direct him, she should hope. And he hadn't seen Dwight? She must telephone him. But then she arrested herself with a sharp, curved fling of her starched skirts. No! They would surprise him at tea--she stood taut, lips compressed. Oh, the Plows were coming to tea. How unfortunate, she thought. How fortunate, she said.
The child Monona made her knees and elbows stiff and danced up and down. She must, she must participate.
"Aunt Lulu made three pies!" she screamed, and shook her straight hair.
"Gracious sakes," said Ninian. "I brought her a pup, and if I didn't forget to give it to her."
They adjourned to the porch--Ninian, Ina, Monona. The puppy was presented, and yawned. The party kept on about "the place." Ina delightedly exhibited the tomatoes, the two apple trees, the new shed, the bird bath. Ninian said the un-spellable "m--m," rising inflection, and the "I see," prolonging the verb as was expected of him. Ina said that they meant to build a summer-house, only, dear me, when you have a family--but there, he didn't know anything about that. Ina was using her eyes, she was arch, she was coquettish, she was flirtatious, and she believed herself to be merely matronly, sisterly, womanly ...
She screamed. Dwight was at the gate. Now the meeting, exclamation, banality, guffaw ... good will.
And Lulu, peeping through the blind.
When "tea" had been experienced that evening, it was