With a swift, friendly hand he patted the rougher hand of
the other. And it was at this opportune moment that Mary Magdalen
led around a corner of Hynds House no less personages than Mrs.
Haile and Miss Martha Hopkins. Their eyes fell upon Doctor Richard
Geddes. They looked at each other. They looked at Alicia and me. And
I knew their thoughts: "Sirens, both of you!" said Miss Hopkins's
eyes.
"How do you do, Doctor Geddes!" said both ladies, as demurely as
cats. _I_ should have felt like a boy caught stealing jam. He went
right on planting bulbs.
"Hello, Martha. What's on the carpet now?" he greeted that lady,
airily. "Writing another paper on 'The Ironic Note in Chivalry'? How
about 'The Effect of the Pre-Raphaelites upon the Feeble-minded'? Or
is it the 'Relation of the Child to Its Mother,' this time?"
"You will have your little joke, Doctor," smiled Miss Hopkins, a
dish-faced blonde with a cultured expression.
"Joke?" The doctor stared up at her. "Joke? Gad, I'd like to believe
it!" He turned to Alicia and me, politely: "Miss Hopkins," he
informed us, "moves among us clothed in white samite. She is our
center of culture; Hyndsville revolves around her.
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