While she smiled at this picture
she threw in another joke, asking herself if Miss Hack could be held
in any degree to constitute the nucleus of a circle. She would come
to see her, in any event--come the more the further she was dragged
down. Sunday was always a difficult day with the two ladies--the
afternoons made it so apparent that they were not frequented. Her
mother, it is true, was comprised in the habits of two or three old
gentlemen--she had for a long time avoided male friends of less than
seventy--who disliked each other enough to make the room, when they
were there at once, crack with pressure. Rose sat for a long time
with Miss Hack, doing conscientious justice to the conception that
there could be troubles in the world worse than her own; and when she
came back her mother was alone, but with a story to tell of a long
visit from Mr. Guy Mangler, who had waited and waited for her return.
"He's in love with you; he's coming again on Tuesday," Mrs. Tramore
announced.
"Did he say so?"
"That he's coming back on Tuesday?"
"No, that he's in love with me."
"He didn't need, when he stayed two hours."
"With you? It's you he's in love with, mamma!"
"That will do as well," laughed Mrs.
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