generously provided—”
“Vincent, get back to the point. What would you do in Edwin’s place?” asked Isobel good-naturedly.
Vincent closed his mouth and gazed at her. “You’re quite right, my dear,” he said. “I tend to sermonize. It’s the strangled professor in me, still writhing for an audience. Well, to put it briefly, if I were in your husband’s excellent black leather shoes, I would go out to the kitchen, and I would empty my wallet, which I trust for your sake is well filled, and I would tell that man to go in peace.”
“And he would laugh at you for a fool,” Edwin said sharply.
“And he would laugh at me for a fool,” Vincent said, “and I would know it, and I would curse him, but I would have done the only thing I could do.”
“I don’t get it,” Jonathan said, with more self-assurance than before.
“Oh, Mr. Quin, Vincent is an actor at heart,” Isobel said. “You should have come to our home when my father was alive. It was a one-man performance every time, Vincent’s performance.”
“I used to make you laugh, Isobel.”
“Of course you did,” Isobel said soothingly.
She sat and watched them all eat their salad, wondering at the same time how the man in the kitchen must feel, to come from the cold and deserted winter street into her warm house. He must be speechless at his good fortune, she thought, and she had a wild impulse to go out into the kitchen and see him for herself. She stood up and said, “I want to see if our unexpected guest has enough of everything.”
She hurried through the pantry and into the white glare of the kitchen, where it was very hot. She rigidly avoided looking at the table, but she was conscious of the strange man’s dark bulk against her white muslin window curtains, and of the harsh smell of his cigar. She wanted him to see her, in her red dress, with her flushed face and her sweet, expensive perfume. She owned the house. He had the right to feast his eyes on her. This was the stranger, the classical figure of the season, who had come unbidden to her feast.
Fat-armed Alice was petting the round brown pudding where a part of it had broken away as she tumbled it out of its cloth into its silver dish. Delia stood watching intently, holding away to her side—as though it were a matador’s cape—the stained and steaming cloth.
“Take your time, Alice,” Isobel said in her clear, nicely tempered voice. “Everything is going splendidly. It couldn’t be a more successful party.”
“That’s very considerate of you, Ma’am,” Alice said, letting her eyes roll meaningfully in the direction of the stranger, as though she were tipping Isobel off.
As she turned to leave the kitchen, Isobel saw the man at the table. She did not mean to see him. She had no intention of looking at him, but she did look. She saw that he had hair and hands, and she knew that he had sight, because she felt his eyes on her, but she could not have given a description of him, because in that rapid, silent glance all she really saw was the thick, filthy stub in his smiling mouth.
His cigar, she thought, sitting down again in the dining room. She leaned forward and took a sip of wine. Miss Ellis’s arms, Vincent’s bow tie, this boy’s broken shoes, and now the beggar’s cigar.
“How is our other guest getting along out there, Delia?” Isobel asked when the salad plates were being cleared away.
“Ah, he’s all right, Ma’am. He’s sitting there and smiling to himself. He’s very quiet, so he is.”
“Has he said nothing at all, Delia?”
“Only when he took an old cigar butt he has out of his pocket. He said to Alice that he strained his back picking it up. He said he made a promise to his mother never to step down off the sidewalk to pick up a butt of a cigar or a cigarette, and he says this one was halfway out in the middle of the street.”
“He must have hung on to a lamppost!” Jonathan cried, delighted.
“Edwin, send a cigar to that poor fellow when Delia comes in again, will you?” Isobel said. “I’d like to feel he had something decent to smoke for once.”
Delia came in, proudly bearing the flaming pudding, and Edwin told her to take a cigar for the man in the kitchen.
“And don’t forget an extra plate for his pudding, Delia,” Isobel said happily.
“Oh, your mother was a mighty woman, Isobel,” Vincent said, “even though we didn’t always see eye to eye.”
“Well, I’m sure you agreed on the important things, Mr. Lace,” Miss Ellis said warmly.
“I don’t like to disappoint or disillusion you, Miss Ellis, but it was on the important things we disagreed. She thought they were unimportant.”
A screech of surprise and rage was heard from the kitchen, which up to that time had sent to their ears only the subdued and pleasant tinkling of glasses and dishes and silver. They were therefore prepared for—indeed, they compelled, by their paralyzed silence—the immediate appearance of Delia, who materialized without her cap, and with her eyes aglow, looking as though she had been taken by the hair and dropped from a great height.
“That fellow out there in the kitchen!” she cried. “He’s gone!”
“Did he take something?” asked Edwin keenly.
“No, sir. At least, now, I don’t think he took anything. I’ll look and see this minute.”
“Delia, calm yourself,” Isobel said. “What was all the noise about?”
“He flew off when I was in here with the pudding, Ma’am. I went out to give him the cigar Mr. Bailey gave me for him, and he was gone, clean out of sight. I ran over to the window, thinking to call him back for his cigar, as long as I had it in my hand, and there wasn’t a sign of him anywhere. Alice didn’t even know he was out of the chair till she heard the outside door bang after him.”
“Now, Delia. It was rude of him to run off like that when you and Alice and all of us have been at such pains to be nice to him, but I’m sure there’s no need for all this silly fuss,” Isobel said, with an exasperated grimace at Edwin.
“But Mrs. Bailey, he didn’t just go!” Delia said wildly.
“Well, what did he do, then?” Edwin asked.
“Oh, sir, didn’t he go and leave his dirty old cigar butt stuck down in the hard sauce, sir!” Delia cried. She put her hands over her mouth and began to make rough noises of merriment and outrage while her eyes swooped incredulously around the table.
Edwin started to rise, but Isobel stopped him with a look. “Delia,” she said, “tell Alice to whip up some kind of sauce for the pudding and bring it in at once.”
“Oh dear, how could he do such a thing?” Miss Ellis whispered as the door swung to on Delia. “And after you’d been so kind to him.” She leaned forward impulsively to pat Isobel’s hand.
“A shocking thing!” Vincent exclaimed. “Shocking! It’s a rotten class of fellow would do a thing like that.”
“You mustn’t let him spoil your lovely dinner, Mrs. Bailey,” Miss Ellis said. Then she added, to Edwin, “Mrs. Bailey is such a person!”
“I never cared much for hard sauce anyway,” Jonathan said.
“I don’t know what you’re all talking about!” Isobel cried.
“We wouldn’t blame you if you were upset,” Vincent said. “But just because some stupid clod insults you is no reason for you to feel insulted.”
“I think that nasty man meant to spoil our nice day,” Miss Ellis said contentedly. “And he hasn’t at all, has he?”
“Let’s all just forget about it,” Edwin said. “Isn’t that right, Miss Ellis?”