Geraldine, her slim hand in Colonel Mallett's, courtesied with old-time quaintness, then her lifted eyes swept the rosy, rotund countenances before her. To each she courtesied and spoke, offering the questioning hand of amity.
The thing that seemed to surprise them was that she had grown since they had seen her. Time flies when hunting safe investments. The manners she retained, like her fashion of wearing her hair, and the cut and length of her apparel were clearly too childish to suit the tall, slender, prettily rounded figurethe mature oval of the face, the delicately firm modelling of the features.
This was no child before them; here stood adorable adolescence, a hint of the awakening in the velvet-brown eyes which were long and slightly slanting at the corners; hints, too, in the vivid lips, in the finer outline of the profile, in faint bluish shadows under the eyes, edging the curved cheeks' bloom.
They had not seen her in two years or more, and she had grown up. They had merely stepped down-town for a hasty two years' glance at the market, and, behind their backs, the child had turned into a woman.
Hitherto they had addressed her as "Geraldine" and "child," when a rare interview had been considered necessary. Now, two years later, unconsciously, it was "Miss Seagrave," and considerable embarrassment when the subject of intimate attire could no longer be avoided.
But Geraldine, unconscious of such things, broached the question with all the directness characteristic of her.
"I am sorry I was rude in my last letter," she said gravely, turning to Mr. Tappan. "Will you please forgive me? I am glad you came. I do not think you understand that I am no longer a little girl, and that things necessary for a woman are necessary for me. I want a quarterly allowance. I need what a young woman needs. Will you give these things to me, Mr. Tappan?"
Mr. Tappan's dry lips cracked apart; he swallowed grimly several times, then his long bony fingers sought the meagre ends of his black string tie:
"In the cultiwation of the indiwidool," he began harshly, and checked himself, when Geraldine flushed to her ear tips and stamped her foot. Self-control had gone at last.
"I won't listen to that!" she said, breathless; "I've listened to it for ten yearsas long as I can remember. Answer me honestly, Mr. Tappan! Can I have what other women havesilk underwear and stockingsreal lace on my night dressesand plenty of it? Can I have suitable gowns and furs, and have my hair dressed properly? I want you to answer; can I make my début this winter and have the gowns I requireand the liberty that girls of my age have?" She turned on Colonel Mallett: "The liberty that Naïda has had is all I want; the sort of things you let her have all I ask for." And appealing to Magnelius Grandcourt, who stood pursing his thick lips, puffed out like a surprised pouter pigeon: "Your daughter Catherine has more than I ask; why do you let her have what you consider bad for me? Why?"
Mr. Grandcourt swallowed several times, and spoke in an undertone to Joshua Hogg. But he did not reply to Geraldine.
Remsen Tappan turned his iron visage toward Colonel Mallettignoring Geraldine's questions.
"In the cultiwation of the indiwidool," he began again dauntlessly
"Isn't there anybody to answer me?" asked Geraldine, turning from one to another.
"Concerning the cultiwation"
"Answer me!" she flashed back. There were tears in her voice, but her eyes blazed.
"Miss Seagrave," interposed old Mr. Montross gravely, "I beg of you to remember"
"Let him answer me first! I asked him a perfectly plain question. Itit is silly to ignore me as though I were a foolish childas though I didn't know my mind."
"I think, Mr. Tappan, perhaps if you could give Miss Seagrave a qualified answer to her questionsmake some preliminary statement" began Mr. Cray cautiously.
"Concerning what?" snapped Tappan with a grim stare.
"Concerning my stockings and my underwear," said Geraldine fiercely. "I'm tired of dressing like a servant!"
Mr. Tappan's rugged jaw opened and shut with another snap.
"I'm opposed to any such innowation," he said.
"Andmy coming out this winter? And my quarterly allowance? Answer me!"
"Time enough when you turn twenty-one, Miss Seagrave. Cultiwation of mind concerns you now, not cultiwation of raiment."
"Thatthat" stammered Geraldine, "is s-su-premely s-silly." The tears reached her eyes; she brushed them away angrily.
Mallett coughed and glanced at Myndert Beekman, then past the secretary, Mr. Varick, directly at Mr. Tappan.
"If you could see your way toahaccede to somea numberperhaps, in a measure, to all of Miss Seagrave's not unreasonable requests, Mr. Tappan"
He hesitated, looked dubiously at Mr. Montross, who nodded. Mr. Cray, also, made an almost imperceptible sign of concurrence. Magnelius Grandcourt, the sixty-year enfant terrible of the company, dreaded for his impulsive outburststhough the effect of these outbursts was always very carefully considered before-handstepped jauntily across the floor, and lifting Geraldine's hand to his rather purplish lips, saluted it with a flourish.
"Oh, I say, Tappan, let Miss Seagrave have what she wants!" he exclaimed with a hearty disregard of caution, which outwardly disturbed but inwardly deceived nobody except Geraldine and Mrs. Severn.
Colonel Mallett thought: "The acquisitive beast is striking attitudes on his fool of a son's account."
Mr. Tappan's small iron-gray eyes bored two holes through the inward motives of Mr. Grandcourt, and his mouth tightened till the seamed lips were merely a line.
"I think, Magnelius," said Colonel Mallett coldly, "that it is, perhaps, the sense of our committee that the time has practically arrived for some changeperhaps radical changein thein theahthe hitherto exceedingly wise regulations"
"May I have real lace?" cried Geraldine"Oh, I beg your pardon, Colonel Mallett, for interrupting, but I was perfectly crazy to know what you were going to say."
Other people have been crazier and endured more to learn what hope the verdict of ponderous authority might hold for them.
Colonel Mallett, a trifle ruffled at the interruption, swallowed several times and then continued without haste to rid himself of a weighty opinion concerning the début and the petticoats of the Half Moon's ward. He might have made the child happy in one word. It took him twenty minutes.
Concurring opinions were then solemnly delivered by every director in turn except Mr. Tappan, who spoke for half an hour, doggedly dissenting on every point.
But the days of the old régime were evidently numbered. He understood it. He looked across at the crackled portrait of his old friend Anthony Seagrave; the faded, painted features were obliterated in a bar of slanting sunlight.
So, concluding his dissenting opinion, and having done his duty, he sat down, drawing the skirts of his frock-coat close around his bony thighs. He had done his best; his reward was this child's hatredwhich she already forgot in the confused delight of her sudden liberation.
Dazed with happiness, to one after another Geraldine courtesied and extended the narrow childlike hand of amityeven to him. Then, as though treading on invisible pink clouds, she floated out and away up-stairs, scarcely conscious of passing her brother on the stairway, who was now descending for his turn before the altar of authority.
When Scott returned he appeared to be unusually red in the face. Geraldine seized him ecstatically:
"Oh, Scott! I am to come out, after alland I'm to have my quarterly, and gowns, and everything. I could have hugged Mr. Grandcourtthe dear! I was so frightenedfrightened into rudenessand then that beast of a Tappan scared me terribly. But it is all right nowand what did they promise you, poor dear?"