Page:Czecho-Slovak Student Life, Volume 18.djvu/15

ment the pageant before her. A maid, clad in uncomfortable black, brought the regent a fur-trimmed coat, and helped her put it on. Then she handed her mistress a black hat which was oddly trimmed with a massive black plume, pointing forward.

“The unicorn,” thought Lurline. It completed Mrs. Kolbasa’s formidable uniform.

There was a tenseness in the atmosphere. Neither Steve nor the girl beside him dared to move. And as the latter shot a glance toward the doorway, she perceived Gerald, motionless, his eyes fixed on the floor.

With an effort Lurline found her voice.

“Gerald, you’re not going to—Lollie’s are you?”

A shadow passed between her and the door, and the Hottentot spoke as she went out.

“Tell Mr. Bruce of Swanhill that I ordered that maple from another firm, Steve.”

And Gerald went out after the voice.

Lurline’s eyes were blinded with tears of humiliation. Her firm little chin quivered, and her lower lip sought refuge within the grip of her even teeth.

She felt Steve’s arm around her, and turned to “cry it out” on his shoulder.

“That’s nothing, baby, she’s always like that,” he said.

“Always?”

He smiled. No one had ever been sincerely complimentary to his capable, eccentric wife. He was used to it.

“Yes, since I married her. But once she was a little girl—a girl like you, only always more practical. I’ve even seen her cry once.”

“Oh—When?”

“It happened once when Gertie—we called her Gertie then—had her heart set on seeing her aunt in Minnesota. You see, Gertie lived in Illinois before we were married. The aunt had been a trained nurse in her younger days, and she had taken care of Gertie when she had the smallpox.”

“Oh—Did she ever have the smallpox?” asked Lurline, as if she doubted Mrs. Kolbasa’s capacity for any human disease.

“She nearly died. Aunt Sue pulled her through, and they became friends. But aunt Sue was taboo for Gertie. You see she was mother-in-law’s only sister, and she had married a man that mother-in-law had taken a fancy to. So Gertie’s mother made it hot for Sue until she left. Sue had one son, hardly a month old, when her husband died. Years later, when Sue’s son married, Sue turned back to the profession of nursing. She took care of cases in the pesthouse when Gertie took sick and was taken there, Those were the days when Gertie’s pennies were few and far between. Sue and she made friends, though there was a difference of twenty-five years or so between them, and Sue invited Gertie to visit at her home. Gertie got well, and returned to her mother. When she told her she wanted to go to Sue’s, there was civil war. I lived next door, so I know. Gertie was put out something awful. She came to our