“Say, don’t you wonder what it is my mother’s goin’ to say to you?” he demanded disingenuously.

Mrs. Slawson shook her head.  “Wonderin’ is a habit I broke myself off of, when I wasn’t knee-high to a grasshopper,” she replied.  “I take things as they come, not to mention as they go.  Either way suits me, an’ annyhow I don’t wonder about ’em.  If it’s somethin’ good, why, it’ll keep.  An’ if it’s somethin’ bad, wonderin’ won’t make it any better.  So what’s the use?”

“Guess I’ll go on up, an’ see my grandmother in her room,” observed Radcliffe casually, as they reached Mrs. Sherman’s door.  “I won’t go in here with you.”

“Dear me, how sorry I am!” Martha returned with feeling.  “I’d kinder counted on you for—­for what they calls moral support, that bein’ the kind the male gender is mainly good for, these days.  But, of course, if you ain’t been invited, it wouldn’t be genteel for you to press yourself.  I can understand your feelin’s.  They does credit to your head an’ to your heart.  As I said before—­so long!  See you later.”

The door having closed her in, Radcliffe lingered aimlessly about, outside.  Without, of course, being able to analyze it, he felt as if some rare source of entertainment had been withdrawn from him, leaving life flat and tasteless.  He felt like being, what his mother called, “fractious,” but—­he remembered, as in a flash, “you never catch a thorerbred whinin’,” and he snapped his jaws together with manly determination.

At Martha’s entrance, Mrs. Sherman glanced up languidly from the book she was reading, and inquired with pointed irony, “You didn’t find it convenient to come to me directly I sent for you, did you, Martha?”

Mrs. Slawson closed the door behind her gently, then stood planted like some massive caryatid supporting the frame.  Something monumental in the effect of her presence made the question just flung at her seem petty, impudent, and Mrs. Sherman hastened to add more considerately, “But I sent Radcliffe with my message.  No doubt he delayed.”

“No’m,” admitted Martha, “he told me all right enough, but I was in the middle o’ polishin’.  It took me a minute or two to get my things collected, an’ then it took me a couple more to get me collected, but—­better late than never, as the sayin’ goes, which, by the same token, I don’t believe it’s always true.”

There was not the faintest trace of apology or extenuation in her tone or manner.  If she had any misgivings as to the possibility of Radcliffe’s having complained, she gave no evidence of it.

“What I want to say is this,” announced Mrs. Sherman autocratically, making straight for the point.  “I absolutely forbid any one in my household to touch—­”

Martha settled herself more firmly on her feet and crossed her arms with unconscious dignity upon her bosom, bracing herself against the coming blow.