This weeks quotes, are from Jean Webster's, The Wheat Princess, one of my favorite stories.
‘Oh, mamma! Sybert came to tea, an’ I made it; an’
he said it was lots better van Marcia’s tea, an’ he dwank
seven cups, an’ I dwank four.’
A chorus of laughter greeted this revelation, and a lazy
voice called from the depths of an easy chair, ‘Oh, I say,
Gerald, you mustn’t tell such shocking tales, or your mother
will never leave me alone with the tea-things again.’ And
the owner of the voice pulled himself together and walked
across the room ta shake hands with the new-comers.
‘It is a pretty decent sort of a place,’ Copley agreed,
‘though I have a sneaking suspicion that we may find it
rather far. But the rest of the family liked it, and my aim
in life——’
‘Nonsense, Uncle Howard! you know you were crazy
over it yourself. You signed the lease without a protest.
Didn’t he, Aunt Katherine?’
21
‘I signed the lease, my dear Marcia, at the point of the
pistol.’
‘The point of the pistol?’
‘You threatened, if we got a mile—an inch, I believe you
said—nearer Rome, you would give a party every day; and
if that isn’t the point of a pistol to a poor, worn-out man
like me, I don’t know what is.’
‘They’ve spent winters in Cairo and Vienna and Paris
and a lot of different places,’ pursued Marcia. ‘Eleanor,’
she added ruminatingly, ‘has been out nine seasons, and
she has had a good deal of—experience.’
‘Dear, dear!’ said her uncle; ‘and you are proposing
to expose all Rome——’
‘She’s very attractive,’ said Marcia, and then she glanced
at Sybert and laughed. ‘If she should happen to take a
fancy to you, Mr. Sybert——’
The young man rose to his feet and looked about for his
hat. ‘Goodness!’ he murmured, ‘what would she do?’
‘There’s no telling.’ Marcia regarded him with a speculative
light in her eyes.
‘A young woman who has been practising for nine seasons
certainly ought to have her hand in,’ Copley agreed. ‘Perhaps,
after all, Sybert, it is best we should not meet her.’
Sybert found his hat and paused for a moment.
‘You can’t frighten me that way, Miss Marcia,’ he said,
with a shake of his head. ‘I have been out thirteen seasons
myself.’
‘May I come in for tea, Cousin Marcia?’ Gerald inquired,
with a note of anxiety in his voice, as they climbed the
stone staircase of the Palazzo Rosicorelli. They had been
spending the afternoon in the Borghese gardens, and the
boy’s very damp sailor-suit bore witness to the fact that he
had been indulging in the forbidden pleasure of catching
goldfish in the fountain.
‘Indeed you may not,’ she returned emphatically. ‘You
28
may go with Marietta and have some dry clothes put on
before your mother sees you.’
Gerald, realizing the wisdom of this course, allowed himself
to be quietly spirited off the back way, in spite of the
fact that he heard the alluring sound of Sybert’s voice in
the direction of the salon. Marcia went on in without
waiting to take off her hat, and she met the Melvilles in the
ante-room, on the point of leaving.
Mr. Copley, who was strolling on the terrace, glanced up,
and catching sight of his niece, paused beneath her balcony
while he quoted:—
‘“But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.”’
Marcia brought her eyes from the distant landscape to a
contemplation of her uncle; and then she stepped through
the glass doors, and leaned over the balcony railing with a
little laugh.
‘You make a pretty poor Romeo, Uncle Howard,’ she
called down. ‘I’m afraid the real one never wore a dinner-jacket
nor smoked a cigarette.’
Mr. Copley spread out his hands in protest.
‘For the matter of that, I doubt if Juliet ever wore a
gown from—where was it—42, Avenue de l’Opéra? How
does the new house go?’ he asked.
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