The Kentons. William Dean Howells

but she tried to do this from not a very clear understanding of her part, apparently, and little sense of the means. For Ellen’s sake, rather than hers, the father and mother received her overtures to their liking kindly; they answered her patiently, and Mrs. Kenton even tried to lead the way for her to show herself at her best, by talking of her journey on to New York, and of the city, and what she would see there to interest her. Lottie and Boyne, sternly aloof together in one of their momentary alliances, listened to her replies with a silent contempt that almost included their mother; Kenton bore with the woman humbly and sadly.

      He was, in fact, rather bewildered with the situation, for which he felt himself remotely if not immediately responsible. Bittridge was there among them not only on good terms, but apparently in the character of a more than tolerated pretendant to Ellen’s favor. There were passages of time is which the father was not sure that the fellow was not engaged to his daughter, though when these instants were gone he was aware that there had been no overt love-making between them and Bittridge had never offered himself. What was he doing there, then? The judge asked himself that, without being able to answer himself. So far as he could make out, his wife and he were letting him see Ellen, and show her off to his mother, mainly to disgust her with them both, and because they were afraid that if they denied her to him, it would be the worse for them through her suffering. The judge was not accustomed to apply the tests by which people are found vulgar or not; these were not of his simple world; all that he felt about Mrs. Bittridge was that she was a very foolish, false person, who was true in nothing but her admiration of her rascal of a son; he did not think of Bittridge as a rascal violently, but helplessly, and with a heart that melted in pity for Ellen.

      He longed to have these people gone, not so much because he was so unhappy in their presence as because he wished to learn Ellen’s feeling about them from his wife. She would know, whether Allen said anything to her or not. But perhaps if Mrs. Kenton had been asked to deliver her mind on this point at once she would have been a little puled. All that she could see, and she saw it with a sinking of the heart, was that Ellen looked more at peace than she had been since Bittridge was last in their house at Tuskingum. Her eyes covertly followed him as he sat talking, or went about the room, making himself at home among them, as if he were welcome with every one. He joked her more than the rest, and accused her of having become a regular New-Yorker; he said he supposed that when she came back from Europe she would not know anybody in Tuskingum; and his mother, playing with Ellen’s fingers, as if they had been the fringe of a tassel, declared that she must not mind him, for he carried on just so with everybody; at the same time she ordered him to stop, or she would go right out of the room.

      She gave no other sign of going, and it was her son who had to make the movement for her at last; she apparently did not know that it was her part to make it. She said that now the Kentons must come and return her call, and be real neighborly, just the same as if they were all at home together. When her son shook hands with every one she did so too, and she said to each, “Well, I wish you good-morning,” and let him push her before him, in high delight with the joke, out of the room.

      When they were gone the Kentons sat silent, Ellen with a rapt smile on her thin, flushed face, till Lottie said, “You forgot to ask him if we might BREATHE, poppa,” and paced out of the room in stately scorn, followed by Boyne, who had apparently no words at the command of his dumb rage. Kenton wished to remain, and he looked at his wife for instruction. She frowned, and he took this for a sign that he had better go, and he went with a light sigh.

      He did not know what else to do with himself, and he went down to the reading-room. He found Bittridge there, smoking a cigar, and the young man companionably offered to bestow one upon him; but the judge stiffly refused, saying he did not wish to smoke just then. He noted that Bittridge was still in his character of family favorite, and his hand trembled as he passed it over the smooth knob of his stick, while he sat waiting for the fellow to take himself away. But Bittridge had apparently no thought of going. He was looking at the amusements for the evening in a paper he had bought, and he wished to consult the judge as to which was the best theatre to go to that night; he said he wanted to take his mother. Kenton professed not to know much about the New York theatres, and then Bittridge guessed he must get the clerk to tell him. But still he did not part with the judge. He sat down beside him, and told him how glad he was to see his family looking so well, especially Miss Ellen; he could not remember ever seeing her so strong-looking. He said that girl had captured his mother, who was in love with pretty much the whole Kenton family, though.

      “And by-the-way,” he added, “I want to thank you and Mrs. Kenton, judge, for the way you received my mother. You made her feel that she was among friends. She can’t talk about anything else, and I guess I sha’n’t have much trouble in making her stay in New York as long as you’re here. She was inclined to be homesick. The fact is, though I don’t care to have it talked about yet, and I wish you wouldn’t say anything to Dick about it when you write home, I think of settling in New York. I’ve been offered a show in the advertising department of one of the big dailies—I’m not at liberty to say which—and it’s a toss-up whether I stay here or go to Washington; I’ve got a chance there, too, but it’s on the staff of a new enterprise, and I’m not sure about it. I’ve brought my mother along to let her have a look at both places, though she doesn’t know it, and I’d rather you wouldn’t speak of it before her; I’m going to take her on to Washington before we go back. I want to have my mother with me, judge. It’s better for a fellow to have that home-feeling in a large place from the start; it keeps him out of a lot of things, and I don’t pretend to be better than other people, or not more superhuman. If I’ve been able to keep out of scrapes, it’s more because I’ve had my mother near me, and I don’t intend ever to be separated from her, after this, till I have a home of my own. She’s been the guiding-star of my life.”