Buddy, when he opened the door and projected himself into the room, startled her into a little exclamation.

“Dad says he’ll carry you out to the table and you can have a whole side to yourself,” he announced without preface.  “They’ll just pick up your chair, and pack chair and all in, and set you down as ee-asy—­do you want to eat out there with us?”

Josephine hesitated for two seconds.  “All right,” she consented then, in a supremely indifferent tone which was of course quite wasted on Buddy, who immediately disappeared with a whoop.

“Come on, dad—­she says yes, all right, she’ll come,” he announced gleefully.  Buddy was Josephine’s devoted admirer, at this point in their rather brief acquaintance; which, according to his mother’s well-known theory, was convincing proof of her intrinsic worth—­Mrs. Kate having frequently strengthened her championship of Ford to his detractor, Miss Josephine, by pointing out that Buddy was fond of him.

Josephine spent the brief interval in tucking back locks of hair and in rearranging the folds of her long, Japanese kimono, and managed to fall into a languidly indifferent attitude by the time Chester opened the door.  Behind him came Ford; Miss Josephine moved her lips and tilted her head in a perfunctory greeting, and afterward gave him no more attention than if he had been a Pullman porter assisting with her suitcases.  For the matter of that, she gave quite as much attention as she received from him—­and Mason’s lips twitched betrayingly at the spectacle.

Through dinner they seemed mutually agreed upon ignoring each other as much as was politely possible, which caused Mason to watch them with amusement, and afterwards relieve his feelings by talking about them to Kate in the kitchen.

“Gosh!  Jo and Ford are sure putting up a good bluff,” he chuckled, while he selected the freshest dish towel from the rack behind the pantry door.  “They’d be sticking out their tongues at each other if they was twenty years younger; pity they ain’t, too; it would be a relief to ’em both!”

“Phenie provokes me almost past endurance!” Mrs. Kate complained, burying two plump forearms in a dishpan of sudsy hot water, and bringing up a handful of silver.  “It’s because Ford had been fighting when he came here, and she knows he has been slightly addicted to liquor.  She looks down on him, and I don’t think it’s fair.  If a man wants to reform, I believe in helping him instead of pushing him father down.”  (Mrs. Kate had certain little peculiarities of speech; one was an italicized delivery, and another was the omission of an r now and then.  She always said “father” when she really meant “farther.”) “There’s a lot that one can do to help.  I believe in showing trust and confidence in a man, when he’s trying to live down past mistakes.  I think it was just fine of you to make him foreman here!  If Phenie would only be nice to him, instead of turning up her nose the way she does!  You see yourself how she treats Ford, and I just think it’s a shame!  I think he’s just splendid!”