"I don't care 'bout any girls ever asking me," Bob insisted stoutly. "I like boy games better--'circus' and 'grandfather's barn.' Only they let the girls play those too," he added, disgustedly.

He started away. But he came back again to say, soberly, "I'll ask Jennie Hobson, if you want me to, Aunt Ellen. She's some like a boy, anyway. Her hair's cut tight to her head--and her eyes are funny. They don't look at you the same."

"Do ask her, Bob. And tell me how she liked it." And Ellen looked affectionately after the small, straight little figure trudging away down the street.

Martha's plans for her reception went on merrily. On the day set she came hurrying over before breakfast, to administer to her brother-in-law a final admonition concerning the coming evening.

"I hope this isn't going to be the busiest day of your life?" she urged Burns.

"It's bound to be,--getting things clear for to-night," he a.s.sured her, good-humouredly.

"Promise me you won't let anything short of a case of life or death keep you away?"

"It's as serious as that, is it? All right, I'll be on hand, unless the heavens fall."

He was good as his word, and at the appointed hour his hostess, keeping an agitated watch on her neighbour's house, saw him arrive, in plenty of time to dress. She drew a relieved breath.

"I didn't expect it," she said to James Macauley, her husband.

"Oh, Red's game. He won't run away from this, much as he hates it. Like the rest of us married men, he knows when dodging positively won't do,"

and Macauley sighed as he settled his tie before the reception-room mirror, obtaining a view of himself with some difficulty, on account of the towering ma.s.ses of flowers and foliage which obscured the gla.s.s.

When Burns and Ellen came across the lawn, Martha flew to meet them.

"You splendid people! Who wouldn't want to have a reception for such a pair?"

"We flatter ourselves we do look pretty fine," Burns admitted, eying his wife with satisfaction. "That gauzy gray thing Ellen has on strikes me as the bulliest yet. If I could just get her to wear a pink rose in her hair I'd be satisfied."

"A rose in her hair! Aren't you satisfied with that exquisite coral necklace? That gives the touch of colour she needs. The rose would overdo it--and wouldn't match, besides." Martha spoke with scorn.

"Yes, a rose would be maudlin, Red; can't you see it?" James Macauley gave his opinion with a wink at his friend. "With the necklace your wife is a dream. With a rose added she'd be a--waking up! Trust 'em, that's my advice. When they get to talking about a 'touch of' anything, that's the time to leave 'em alone. A touch of colour is not a daub."

"Who's lecturing on art?" queried Arthur Chester, from the doorway.

His wife, Winifred, entering before him, cried out at sight of the pale gray gauze gown.

"O Ellen! I thought I looked pretty well, till I caught sight of you. Now I feel crude!"

"Absurd," said Ellen, laughing. "You are charming in that blue."

"There they go again," groaned Macauley to Burns. "Winifred feels crude, when she looks at Ellen. Why? I don't feel crude when I look at you or Art Chester. Neither of you has so late a cut on your dress-coat as I, I flatter myself. I feel anything but crude. And I don't want a rose in my hair, either."

"You're a self-satisfied prig," retorted Burns. "Hullo! Somebody's coming. Tell me what to do, Martha. Do I run to meet them and rush them up to Ellen, or do I display a studied indifference? I never 'received'

at a reception in my life."

"Get in line there," instructed Macauley. "Martha and I'll greet them first and pa.s.s them on to you. Don't look as if you were noting symptoms and don't absent-mindedly feel their pulses. It's not done, outside of consulting rooms."

"I'll try to remember." R.P. Burns, M.D. resignedly took his place, murmuring in Ellen's ear, as the first comers appeared at the door, "Promise you'll make this up to me, when it's over. I shall have to blow off steam, somehow. Will you help?"

She nodded, laughing. He chuckled, as an idea popped into his head; then drew his face into lines of propriety, and stood, a big, dignified figure--for Red Pepper could be dignified when the necessity was upon him--beside the other graceful figure at his side, suggesting an unfailing support of her grace by his strength to all who looked at them that night. He had declared himself ignorant of all conventions, but neither jocose James Macauley nor fastidious Arthur Chester, observing him, could find any fault with their friend in this new role. As the stream of their townspeople pa.s.sed by, each with a carefully prepared word of greeting, Burns was ready with a quick-wittedly amiable rejoinder. And whenever it became his duty to present to his wife those who did not know her, he made of the act a little ceremony which seemed to set her apart as his own in a way which roused no little envy of her, if he had but known it, in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of certain of the feminine portion of the company.

"You're doing n.o.bly. Keep it up an hour longer and you shall be let off,"

said Macauley to Burns, at a moment when both were free.

"Oh, I'm having the time of my life," Burns a.s.sured him grimly, mopping a warm brow and thrusting his chin forward with that peculiar masculine movement which suggests momentary relief from an encompa.s.sing collar.

"Why should anybody want to be released from such a soul-refreshing diversion as this? I've lost all track of time or sense,--I just go on grinning and a.s.senting to everything anybody says to me. I couldn't discuss the simplest subject with any intelligence whatever--I've none left."

"You don't need any. Decent manners and the grin will do. Had anything to eat yet?"

"What's got to be eaten?" Burns demanded, unhappily.

"Punch, and ices--and little cakes, I believe. Cheer up, man, you don't have to eat 'em, if you don't want to."

"Thanks for that. I'll remember it of you when greater favours have been forgotten. Martha has her eye on me--I must go. I'll get even with Martha for this, some time." And the guest of honour, stuffing his handkerchief out of sight and thrusting his coppery, thick locks back from his martyred brow, obeyed the summons.

The next time Macauley caught sight of him, he was a.s.siduously supplying a row of elderly ladies with ices and little cakes, and smiling at them most engagingly. They were looking up at him with that grateful expression which many elderly ladies unconsciously a.s.sume when a handsome and robust young man devotes himself to them. Burns found this task least trying of all his duties during that long evening, for one of the row reminded him of his own mother, to whom he was a devoted son, and for her sake he would give all aging women of his best. Something about this little group of unattended guests, all living more or less lonely lives, as he well knew them in their homes, touched his warm heart, and he lingered with them to the neglect of younger and fairer faces, until his host, again at his elbow, in a strenuous whisper admonished him:

"For heaven's sake, Red, don't waste any more of that rare sweetness on the desert air. Go and lavish your Beau Brummel gallantry on the wives of our leading citizens. Those new Winterbournes have sackfuls of money--and a chronic invalid or two always in the family, I'm told. A little attention there--"

"Clear out," Burns retorted shortly, and deliberately sat down beside the little, white-haired old lady who reminded him of his mother. As he had been standing before, this small act was significant, and Macauley, with a comprehending chuckle, moved away again.

"Might have known that wouldn't work," he a.s.sured himself. He strolled over to Ellen, and when, after some time, he succeeded in getting her for a moment to himself, he put an interested question.

"What do you think of your husband as a society man? A howling success, eh? He's been sitting for one quarter of an hour by the side of old Mrs.

Gillis. And a whole roomful of devoted patients, past and future, looking daggers at him because he ignores them. How's that for business policy, eh? Can't you bring him to his senses?"

"Are you sure they're looking daggers? I pa.s.sed Mrs. Gillis and Red just now, and thought they made a delightful pair. As for business policy, Jim,--a man who would be good to an old lady would be good to a young one. Isn't that the natural inference,--if you must think about business at all at such an affair. I prefer not to think about it at all."

"You may not be thinking about it, but you're capturing friends, right and left. I've been watching you, and knew by the expression on the faces of those you were talking to that you were gathering them in and nailing them fast. How does a woman like you do it?--that's what I'd like to know!"

"Go and do your duty like a man, Jimmy. Flattering the members of your own family is not a part of it." Dismissing him with a smile which made him more than ever eager for her company, she turned away, to devote herself, as her husband was doing, to the least attractive of the guests.

The evening wore away at last, and at a reasonably early hour the hosts were free. The last fellow citizen had barely delivered his parting speech and taken himself off when Red Pepper Burns turned a handspring in the middle of the deserted room, and came up grinning like a fiend.

"Good-bye--good-bye--'tis a word I love to speak," he warbled, and seizing his wife kissed her ardently on either cheek.

"Hear--hear!" applauded James Macauley, returning from the hall in time to see this expression of joy. "May we all follow your excellent example?"

"You may not." Red Pepper frowned fiercely at Mr. Macauley, approaching with mischievous intent. "Keep off!"

"She's my sister-in-law," defended Macauley, continuing to draw near, and smiling broadly.

"All the more reason for you to treat her with respect." Burns's arm barred the way.

Macauley stopped short with an unbelieving chuckle. Arthur Chester, Winifred, his wife, and Martha Macauley, coming in from the dining-room together, gazed with interest at the scene before them. Ellen, herself smiling, looked at her husband rather as if she saw something in him she had never seen before. For it was impossible not to perceive that he was not joking as he prevented Macauley from reaching his wife.

"Great snakes! he's in earnest!" howled Macauley, stopping short. "He won't let me kiss his wife, when I'm the husband of her sister. Go 'way, man, and cool that red head of yours. Anybody'd think I was going to elope with her!"

"Think what you like," Burns retorted, coolly, "so long as you keep your distance with your foolery. You or any other man."