the
drawing-room ahead of her. She had thought it all over, all, from the
quality of the delayed dinner down to the things that the guests were
likely to be saying in her absence. Then, young as she was, she took
her resolution. After that, she would catch her father suddenly, and
bring him back, red-handed. A man like Doctor Keltridge ought not to be
reduced to the conventional dead level of his fellow townsmen; it would
be a waste of rare material. Rather, as the phrase is, he should be
featured. And Olive proceeded to feature him accordingly, to the solid
satisfaction of her father and to the no small rapture of his old-time
cronies.

As a matter of course, under this new and unorthodox arrangement, a
dinner invitation at the Keltridges' became a thing of almost infinite
value. Apart from the surety of the good dinner, and the cordial
welcome of the pretty little hostess who, young as she was, yet
understood to the full the delicate distinction between chat and
chatter: apart from all this was the humorous question contained within
the host. No one could ever foretell whether he would greet them on the
threshold in his overcoat and goloshes, or be invisible until the
dinner was announced, and then be led in by one cuff, like a guilty
youngster caught among the jam pots. No one ever could foretell,
either, what would be the doctor's costume for the evening, whether it
would combine a dinner jacket and a four-in-hand, or whether a wadded
housecoat and no necktie at all above his evening linen would announce
to his guests that a sudden thirst for knowledge had cut athwart his
dressing and sent him to the laboratory to discover how some malignant
brew or other might be getting on. Upon one point only Olive, product
of these modern days, stood firm. Her father might be as charmingly
erratic as he chose; but he must sterilize his hands, before he came
into the drawing-room. And upon that one point of domestic discipline
his guests rested in placid confidence, sure that, as long as Olive was
at the helm, they could devour the Keltridge dinners in reasonable
surety of not being poisoned.

If Doctor Keltridge was charming as host, he was even more charming,
taken as a father. He was adoring, indulgent, whimsical, and singularly
tactful in spite of his absent-minded lapses. To Olive, indeed, he
seemed to be the only man at all well worth the while. Nevertheless, as
now, it sometimes became imperative to be a little masterful