Lena was extraordinarily pretty, and he had a theory that pretty girls
were made to be talked to. Lena thought so too, yet all she said was, "I
should think the digging would be very dirty work, though."
He glanced at her swiftly, and, though there was nothing unfriendly in
the look, she felt an uncomfortable shiver. She fell into a miserable
silence which she hardly broke when the others addressed her with a
deliberate question or made some manifest effort to include her in
topics introduced for her benefit. These attempts were only too apparent
to her and rasped her soul the more. These people had such a perplexing
way of saying whatever came into their heads. They were serious and
frivolous at unexpected places. They were not at all "elegant"; they
were natural, but their naturalness was not of Lena's kind. Mr. Lenox
rose and smiled at his wife.
"I think I must go and have a look at my latest son," he said. "He is a
very interesting person. At present he seems to be composed of two
simple but diverse elements, a stomach and a sense of humor." At the
door he paused again and said, "Have you seen our new coat of arms,
Madeline?--two kids rambunctious?"
He went away and sounds of manifest hilarity floated down the stairs.
And then dinner was announced, and he looked so good-tempered when he
returned and gave Lena his arm that her spirits were again lifted up.
She had never before been escorted to a meal as though it were an affair
of ceremony.
"I met an old fellow to-day," her host began with persistent attempt to
draw her out, "that told me that for two years he had dined on bread and
milk. And then I felt that I was a favorite of fortune to be able
fearlessly to storm the dining-room. Happy the appendix that has no
history."
Lena giggled helplessly. Was it amusement that she saw in Mr. Lenox's
eyes as he unfolded his napkin and surveyed her?
"It's an awesome thing, isn't it, to be living in a world darkened on
one side by the servant question and on the other by the appendix, like
Scylla and Charybdis?"
She found herself sitting down to face the mysteries of a meal whose
type was different from any hitherto met in her brief experience of
life. Her internal summing up was, "Of course I can't make any
impression on Mr. Lenox. He likes the other kind of woman."
She looked at Mrs. Lenox, a woman of restraint and dark hair and
straight lines, and contrasted her with herself, a thing of curves and
sunshine colors. She did not know that a man never cares for a type of
woman, but only for woman in the concrete. Poor little Lena! When the
evening was over and she found herself at last in her too-splendid
bedroom, she put arms and head down on the dressing-table and sobbed.
These people were simple where she was complicated and complicated where
she was simple. It was all uncomfortable and different. She thought of
Jim Nolan's unfrilled conversation, of his clumsy, rather inane
compliments, of his primitive amoeba-like type of humor. She saw the
whole course of her life of mean shifts and wranglings with her mother;
and though its moral niggardliness was unappreciated, its physical
meagerness sickened her in contrast to the ease and beauty of these
newer scenes. She must climb out of that life, somehow, by hook or
crook; if this were the alternative, she must grow to its likeness, no
matter how the birth-pangs hurt. She would face it. She would even
rejoice in the opportunity to study these women and mold herself to
their outward form of bien aise. She would--she would. Faint and
far-away voices came to her, and she wondered if Mr. and Mrs. Lenox were
discussing her and laughing, as she would do in their place, at her
gaucheries. The meaner you are yourself, the easier it is to believe in
the meanness of others. It was the most godlike of men who taught the
godliness of all men. Lena could not imagine that these people could
either like or respect her unless she were molded after their pattern
and had as much as they had.