The Elevator | Page 4

MR. ROBERTS to MRS. ROBERTS entering the drawing-room from
regions beyond: "My dear, it's six o'clock. What can have become of
your aunt?"
MRS. ROBERTS, with a little anxiety: "That was just what I was going
to ask. She's never late; and the children are quite heart-broken. They
had counted upon seeing her, and talking Christmas a little before they
were put to bed."
ROBERTS: "Very singular her not coming! Is she going to begin
standing upon ceremony with us, and not come till the hour?"
MRS. ROBERTS: "Nonsense, Edward! She's been detained. Of course
she'll be here in a moment. How impatient you are!"
ROBERTS: "You must profit by me as an awful example."
MRS. ROBERTS, going about the room, and bestowing little touches
here and there on its ornaments: "If you'd had that new cook to battle
with over this dinner, you'd have learned patience by this time without
any awful example."
ROBERTS, dropping nervously into the nearest chair: "I hope she isn't
behind time."
MRS. ROBERTS, drifting upon the sofa, and disposing her train
effectively on the carpet around her: "She's before time. The dinner is
in the last moment of ripe perfection now, when we must still give
people fifteen minutes' grace." She studies the convolutions of her train
absent-mindedly.
ROBERTS, joining in its perusal: "Is that the way you've arranged to
be sitting when people come in?"

MRS. ROBERTS: "Of course not. I shall get up to receive them."
ROBERTS: "That's rather a pity. To destroy such a lovely pose."
MRS. ROBERTS: "Do you like it?"
ROBERTS: "It's divine."
MRS. ROBERTS: "You might throw me a kiss."
ROBERTS: "No; if it happened to strike on that train anywhere, it
might spoil one of the folds. I can't risk it." A ring is heard at the
apartment door. They spring to their feet simultaneously.
MRS. ROBERTS: "There's Aunt Mary now!" She calls into the
vestibule, "Aunt Mary!"
DR. LAWTON, putting aside the vestibule portiere, with affected
timidity: "Very sorry. Merely a father."
MRS. ROBERTS: "Oh! Dr. Lawton? I am so glad to see you!" She
gives him her hand: "I thought it was my aunt. We can't understand
why she hasn't come. Why! where's Miss Lawton?"
LAWTON: "That is precisely what I was going to ask you."
MRS. ROBERTS: "Why, she isn't here."
LAWTON: "So it seems. I left her with the carriage at the door when I
started to walk here. She called after me down the stairs that she would
be ready in three seconds, and begged me to hurry, so that we could
come in together, and not let people know I'd saved half a dollar by
walking."
MRS. ROBERTS: "SHE'S been detained too!"
ROBERTS, coming forward: "Now you know what it is to have a
delinquent Aunt-Mary-in-law."
LAWTON, shaking hands with him: "O Roberts! Is that you? It's
astonishing how little one makes of the husband of a lady who gives a
dinner. In my time--a long time ago--he used to carve. But nowadays,
when everything is served a la Russe, he might as well be abolished.
Don't you think, on the whole, Roberts, you'd better not have come
ROBERTS: "Well, you see, I had no excuse. I hated to say an
engagement when I hadn't any."
LAWTON: "Oh, I understand. You WANTED to come. We all do,
when Mrs. Roberts will let us." He goes and sits down by MRS.
ROBERTS, who has taken a more provisional pose on the sofa. "Mrs.
Roberts, you're the only woman in Boston who could hope to get
people, with a fireside of their own--or a register--out to a Christmas

dinner. You know I still wonder at your effrontery a little?"
MRS. ROBERTS, laughing: "I knew I should catch you if I baited my
hook with your old friend."
LAWTON: "Yes, nothing would have kept me away when I heard
Bemis was coming. But he doesn't seem so inflexible in regard to me.
Where is he?"
MRS. ROBERTS: "I'm sure I don't know. I'd no idea I was giving such
a formal dinner. But everybody, beginning with my own aunt, seems to
think it a ceremonious occasion. There are only to be twelve. Do you
know the Millers?"
LAWTON: "No, thank goodness! One meets some people so often that
one fancies one's weariness of them reflected in their sympathetic
countenances. Who are these acceptably novel Millers?"
MRS. ROBERTS: "Do explain the Millers to the doctor, Edward."
ROBERTS, standing on the hearth-rug, with his thumbs in his
waistcoat pockets: "They board."
LAWTON: "Genus. That accounts for their willingness to flutter round
your evening lamp when they ought to be singeing their wings at their
own. Well, species?"
ROBERTS: "They're very nice young newly married people. He's
something or other of some kind of manufactures. And Mrs. Miller is