Chapter IV

Four restrained and well-bred gossips lingered at table, after the other boarders had strayed to porch and parlor, and toyed with their little cups of coffee and their cigarettes.

“But I am—frankly—no end astonished,” confessed Miss Sylvia Stark, baring her immaculate soul to the chosen few. “One shouldn’t have illusions at—at thirty, I suppose, but I was so enchanted, Miss Bascom, when I joined your little family, to find such good fellowship, such obvious accord. It was quite Utopian—really!

“And now, so soon, to find these lovely young persons all fallen out—eating with downcast eyes, darting black looks about the table generally, and sighing like furnaces—as Shakespeare would say.”

“It’s too awfully bad!” murmured the hostess. “We have trials—yes, trials, from time to time. But we _were_ such a happy family! Kitty is the sweetest child. If I were—er—married, you know, and had a daughter, I should want her to be like Kitty.

“And Douglas Raymond—oh, quite adorable! A little immature, a little impractical and visionary, but such a good and wholesome lad. I suppose it was inevitable that a discordant note should sound; the little idyll could not be prolonged forever. Miss Perkins is charming, in her way, but—oh, such a different type, you know.”

“I had a feeling,” said Mrs. Tredmore, “when Miss Perkins came here, about a month ago, that—oh, you know! a sort of intuition—that another element had entered. Well, I sensed something inimical to our peace and harmony.”

Dr. Hillary reflectively polished his glasses, half smiling to himself over his musings.

“A little cosmos!” he murmured gently. “Wherever two or more persons are gathered together there you have a little world, with all the elements and factors of existence functioning in an area circumscribed. Laboratory specimens, one might say, but displaying to the student and observer all the phenomena of nature and the universe.”

“Fascinating!” breathed Miss Stark.

“The history of man is reënacted,” continued the professor. “Eternal Eve, eternal Adam—and the eternal Lilith!”

“Lilith!” sighed Mrs. Tredmore contentedly. “Isn’t it strange that the name flitted through my thoughts the first time that I met Miss Perkins here? Oh, pray, don’t misinterpret my meaning!”

“I comprehend your meaning—perfectly, Mrs. Tredmore,” said Miss Stark. “Miss Perkins is really quite a charming person—and intelligent, and talented—an artist who has obviously enjoyed success of a sort; but—her lovely eyes—a little hard? The beautiful mouth—a little sensuous? Her quite too perfect hands—the long and tapering fingers of the artist—are they not—er—”

“May we say, the least thought predatory?” ventured the professor.

“The word was on my lips!” exclaimed Miss Bascom with glowing satisfaction. “And yet, I tell you, I’m quite fond of Miss Perkins. She can be very sweet and winsome; there’s something very likable about the girl.”

“Say, folks!” called Ralph Atwood from the parlor door, “don’t let me bust up your committee meeting, but the Orpheus Gleemen are on the air—or will be in a minute. It’s nothing for me to get excited about, but Miss Bascom’s pretty keen about ’em.”

“Let us go in,” said the hostess. “We’ve had such a charming chat, haven’t we? It’s these little intimate, congenial moments with really understanding persons that make the life of the professional hostess endurable, I can assure you.”

“And it is hostesses like you, dear Miss Bascom,” said Miss Stark, “that free life in a boarding house from its traditional terrors. Wistaria Lodge is more like a little club for intellectual persons!”

“That’s sweet and gracious of you, Miss Stark!” declared Miss Bascom.

Henry Caddock sat in a little haze of pipe smoke with the evening paper. Kitty Granby occupied the window seat, running over the leaves of a book and affecting an air of quiet abstraction. Most of the other regulars were grouped about the front room, reading or chatting.

The loud-speaker suddenly took the floor.

“This is WXL, Port Cardinal. Again our home-town boys are greeting the radio neighbors. The Orpheus Gleemen present as their first number of the program the immortal Richard Wagner’s ‘Pilgrims’ Chorus,’ from that beautiful masterpiece of operatic composition, ‘Tannhäuser.’ The talented young artist, Miss Dora Perkins, will preside at the piano, giving her usual aid and inspiration to her fellow artists.”

“Beautiful-but-dumb Dora’s getting a boost!” chuckled Ralph Atwood, grinning at Kitty Granby. “She’s been googly-goo-ing the announcer, and she can do that little thing, believe me!”

“Has any one got the new number of this magazine?” inquired Kitty, ostentatiously lifting a periodical from the reading table. “I’m reading a continued story in it.”

“Oh, listen to the music, kid!” chuckled Ralph cruelly. “It might be fair, in spite of the weather.”

“I think they sing quite admirably,” observed Miss Stark, at the end of the number. “And Miss Perkins’s accompaniment was really strong and quite authoritative, I should say.”

“Dora packs a punch!” declared Ralph. “And when she puts her heart into it, get ready to duck!”

“Hm—such quaint and original expressions!” murmured Miss Stark.

“Mr. Atwood keeps us abreast of the times, with respect to the vernacular,” said Dr. Hillary with quiet sarcasm.

The first tenor of the Gleemen sang an operatic aria, and then joined the second bass in a dramatic duet from another music drama.

“How about our star boarder, Miss Bascom?” Ralph inquired. “He’s taking a back seat tonight. A whole hour’s program without a solo from the boy wonder! That’s a wallop at Wistaria Lodge, and I’ll write to the manager of WXL about it.”

The quartet sang two more numbers; then—

“The Orpheus Gleemen’s hour will conclude,” said the announcer, “with what we hope will prove a pleasing novelty to our audience. Miss Dora Perkins, our artist-accompanist, already famous as a virtuoso, will render the incomparable ‘_Liebestraum_’ of the Hungarian genius, Franz Liszt, as a piano solo, while the Orpheus Gleemen will sing a vocal accompaniment with words especially adapted to the number. We present Miss Perkins.”

“Wow!” cried Ralph. “Has Dora got that announcer by the nose? Or would it be the manager? She’s leading ’em around on a leash and they’re jumping through hoops for ’er! Get that? The quartet is accompanying the piano! The tail is wagging Fido!”

“She played it admirably, really!” remarked Mrs. Tredmore at the end of the solo. “We should be very proud of our artists.”

“This concludes the hour of the Orpheus Gleemen,” said the announcer, “and we hope you have enjoyed it, ladies and gentlemen of the radio audience. Our friends, the Gleemen, are always delighted and encouraged by your letters, and I’m sure that Miss Perkins—Miss Dora Perkins, remember!—would be highly gratified if you would express your opinions of her work.

“We cannot hear your applause, you know, and the mail brings us the only assurance of your approval. If you desire to write to Miss Perkins personally, you may address your letters to her, in care of Station WXL, Port Cardinal, and I’m sure she will be pleased and gratified.”

“Who is that guy?” growled Ralph. “That’s a different voice; ’tisn’t the regular announcer.”

“Please stand by for your station announcement,” the voice went on. “You are listening to the program of Station WXL, Port Cardinal, owned and operated by the Port Cardinal Electrical Power and Equipment Corporation.

“This is my first broadcast as your announcer, dear friends, and I’ll admit that I’m a bit nervous this evening, but I shall strive to do better and aim to give you service and satisfaction. This is Douglas Raymond speaking. Thank you for your attention. We now continue the program from New York City.”

“Heck!” grunted Ralph, quite flabbergasted.

“Delightful!” purred Miss Bascom. “And he did so well, didn’t he? But how extraordinary that none of us suspected it! It didn’t sound like his voice, and it wasn’t his usual manner of speaking, was it?”

“He was high-hatting the radio audience, that’s why,” Hubert Quirk informed her.

“The pulpit or platform orator,” explained Dr. Hillary, “has his special diction and manner for the public, often rather sharply differentiated from his everyday speech and manner. I think that Mr. Raymond did remarkably well, for a young man, and without much experience of the sort.”

“Hey, Kitty! Kitty Granby! Come out o’ that book,” called Ralph insistently. “Mean to say you didn’t hear anything? It was Doug Raymond announcing. He’s the radio announcer at WXL now. Get that?”

Kitty laid down her magazine and raised her head, with a little bored expression. She glanced superciliously at Ralph, and met the stares of the others without flinching.

“I heard it all,” she said calmly. “I recognized Mr. Raymond’s voice the first time he spoke.”

“My eye! Oh, well, she _would_, I reckon!” exclaimed Ralph. “But say, folks! Has that kid fallen hard for dazzling Dora? I’m here to broadcast to the world he has! Or she’s got her lily fingers twisted into his curly hair and is holding his nose right up to the microphone.

“Hereafter it’ll be the Dora Perkins hour, with the Orpheus kids on the side. It’s Broadway or Hollywood for darling Dora, or bust!—bust somebody else!”