But I never knew much about the language of shavings, and I can't say exactly----""Oh, don't--DON'T, Pen!" and here Irene gave over laughing, and began to sob in her sister's arms.
"Why, 'Rene!" cried the elder girl.
"You KNOW he didn't mean anything.He doesn't care a bit about me.He hates me! He despises me! Oh, what shall I do?"A trouble passed over the face of the sister as she silently comforted the child in her arms; then the drolling light came back into her eyes."Well, 'Rene, YOU haven't got to do ANYthing.That's one advantage girls have got--if it IS an advantage.I'm not always sure."Irene's tears turned to laughing again.When she lifted her head it was to look into the mirror confronting them, where her beauty showed all the more brilliant for the shower that had passed over it.She seemed to gather courage from the sight.
"It must be awful to have to DO," she said, smiling into her own face."I don't see how they ever can.""Some of 'em can't--especially when there's such a tearing beauty around.""Oh, pshaw, Pen! you know that isn't so.You've got a real pretty mouth, Pen," she added thoughtfully, surveying the feature in the glass, and then pouting her own lips for the sake of that effect on them.
"It's a useful mouth," Penelope admitted; "I don't believe I could get along without it now, I've had it so long.""It's got such a funny expression--just the mate of the look in your eyes; as if you were just going to say something ridiculous.He said, the very first time he saw you, that he knew you were humorous.""Is it possible?" must be so, if the Grand Mogul said it.
Why didn't you tell me so before, and not let me keep on going round just like a common person?"Irene laughed as if she liked to have her sister take his praises in that way rather than another.
"I've got such a stiff, prim kind of mouth," she said, drawing it down, and then looking anxiously at it.
"I hope you didn't put on that expression when he offered you the shaving.If you did, I don't believe he'll ever give you another splinter."The severe mouth broke into a lovely laugh, and then pressed itself in a kiss against Penelope's cheek.
"There! Be done, you silly thing! I'm not going to have you accepting ME before I've offered myself, ANYWAY."She freed herself from her sister's embrace, and ran from her round the room.
Irene pursued her, in the need of hiding her face against her shoulder again."O Pen! O Pen!" she cried.
The next day, at the first moment of finding herself alone with her eldest daughter, Mrs.Lapham asked, as if knowing that Penelope must have already made it subject of inquiry:
"What was Irene doing with that shaving in her belt yesterday?""Oh, just some nonsense of hers with Mr.Corey.
He gave it to her at the new house." Penelope did not choose to look up and meet her mother's grave glance.
"What do you think he meant by it?"
Penelope repeated Irene's account of the affair, and her mother listened without seeming to derive much encouragement from it.
"He doesn't seem like one to flirt with her," she said at last.Then, after a thoughtful pause: "Irene is as good a girl as ever breathed, and she's a perfect beauty.
But I should hate the day when a daughter of mine was married for her beauty.""You're safe as far as I'm concerned, mother."Mrs.Lapham smiled ruefully."She isn't really equal to him, Pen.I misdoubted that from the first, and it's been borne in upon me more and more ever since.
She hasn't mind enough." "I didn't know that a man fell in love with a girl's intellect," said Penelope quietly.
"Oh no.He hasn't fallen in love with Irene at all.
If he had, it wouldn't matter about the intellect."Penelope let the self-contradiction pass.
"Perhaps he has, after all."
"No," said Mrs.Lapham."She pleases him when he sees her.
But he doesn't try to see her."
"He has no chance.You won't let father bring him here.""He would find excuses to come without being brought, if he wished to come," said the mother."But she isn't in his mind enough to make him.He goes away and doesn't think anything more about her.She's a child.
She's a good child, and I shall always say it; but she's nothing but a child.No, she's got to forget him.""Perhaps that won't be so easy."
"No, I presume not.And now your father has got the notion in his head, and he will move heaven and earth to bring it to pass.I can see that he's always thinking about it.""The Colonel has a will of his own," observed the girl, rocking to and fro where she sat looking at her mother.
"I wish we had never met them!" cried Mrs.Lapham.
"I wish we had never thought of building! I wish he had kept away from your father's business!""Well, it's too late now, mother," said the girl.
"Perhaps it isn't so bad as you think."
"Well, we must stand it, anyway," said Mrs.Lapham, with the grim antique Yankee submission.
"Oh yes, we've got to stand it," said Penelope, with the quaint modern American fatalism.
