confusion of tongues it was presently intelligible that Mrs. Kenby
was going to be down in a few minutes; and Kenby took March into his
confidence with a smile which was, almost a wink in explaining that he
knew how it was with the ladies. He said that Rose and he usually got
down to breakfast first, and when he had listened inattentively to Mrs.
March's apology for being on her way home, he told her that she was
lucky not to have gone to Schevleningen, where she and March would have
frozen to death. He said that they were going to spend September at a
little place on the English coast, near by, where he had been the day
before with Rose to look at lodgings, and where you could bathe all
through the month. He was not surprised that the Marches were going
home, and said, Well, that was their original plan, wasn't it?

Mrs. Kenby, appearing upon this, pretended to know better, after the
outburst of joyful greeting with the Marches; and intelligently reminded
Kenby that he knew the Marches had intended to pass the winter in Paris.
She was looking extremely pretty, but she wished only to make them see
how well Rose was looking, and she put her arm round his shoulders as
she spoke, Schevleningen had done wonders for him, but it was fearfully
cold there, and now they were expecting everything from Westgate, where
she advised March to come, too, for his after-cure: she recollected in
time to say, She forgot they were on their way home. She added that she
did not know when she should return; she was merely a passenger, now;
she left everything to the men of the family. She had, in fact, the
air of having thrown off every responsibility, but in supremacy, not
submission. She was always ordering Kenby about; she sent him for her
handkerchief, and her rings which she had left either in the tray of
her trunk, or on the pin-cushion, or on the wash-stand or somewhere, and
forbade him to come back without them. He asked for her keys, and then
with a joyful scream she owned that she had left the door-key in the
door and the whole bunch of trunk-keys in her trunk; and Kenby treated
it all as the greatest joke; Rose, too, seemed to think that Kenby would
make everything come right, and he had lost that look of anxiety which
he used to have; at the most he showed a friendly sympathy for Kenby,
for whose sake he seemed mortified at her. He was unable to regard his
mother as the delightful joke which she appeared to Kenby, but that
was mer