"Nonsense, nonsense, Phoebe Donelson!" exclaimed the major. "Every pound
is an added charm. Sit here beside me." And he drew her into a chair at
the corner of the table.
In a twinkling of her black eyes Tempie had served her with the golden
muffins and crisp chicken. With a long sigh of absolute rapture Phoebe
resigned herself to the inevitable crash of her resolutions.
"Ah, I never was so miserable and so happy in all my life before," she
said. "I'm so hungry--and I'm so stout--and these muffins are wickedly
delicious."
"Phoebe," said the major sternly, "instead of starving yourself to death
you need to lie awake at night with lovers' troubles. Why, the summer I
courted Matilda I could have wrapped my belt around me twice. I have
never been portly since. It's loving you need, good, hard, miserable
loving. Didn't you ever hear of a 'lean and hungry lover'? Your conduct
is positively--have another muffin and this little slice of upper
joint--I say positively, unwomanly inhuman. Are there no depths of pity
in your breast? Is your bosom of adamant? When did you see David Kildare?
He is in a most pitiable condition. He left here not an hour ago and I
felt--"
"Don't worry over David, please, Major," said Phoebe as she paused with
a bit of buttered muffin suspended on the way to her white teeth. "He
is the most riotously--thank you, Tempie, just one more--happy individual
I know. What he wants he has, and he sees to it that he has what he
wants--to which add a most glorious leisure in which to want and have."
"Phoebe, David Kildare has an aching void in his heart that weighs
just one hundred and thirty-six pounds, lacking now I believe one and
three-quarters pounds plus three muffins and a half chicken. How can you
be so heartless?" The major bent a benignly stern glance upon her which
she returned with the utmost unconcern.
"He did not see you all of yesterday or the day before and only once on
Monday, and then you--"
"That sounds like one of those rhyming calendars, my dear Major.
"Monday I am going far away,
Tuesday I'll be busy all the day,
Wednesday is the day I study French,
Thursday is the--"
and Phoebe hummed the little nonsense jingle to him in a most beguiling
manner.
The major laughed delightedly. "Phoebe, some day you will be held
responsible for David Kildare's--"
"But, my dear Major," interrupted Phoebe, "how could I be expected to
work all day for raiment and food, with malted milk and eggs at the price
they are now, and then be responsible for such a perfectly irresponsible
person as David Kildare? Why, just yesterday, while I was writing up the
Farrell débutante tea with the devil waiting at my elbows for copy and
the composing room in a stew, he called me twice over the wire. He knew
better, but didn't care."