The mother of the boy said, "I thought we must be off the Banks when I
came out of my room, but it was only the electric fan at the foot of the
stairs."
"That was what I thought," said Mrs. March. "I almost sent my husband
back for my shawl!" Both the ladies laughed and liked each other for
their common experience.
The gentleman at the head of the table said, "They ought to have fans
going there by that pillar, or else close the ports. They only let in
heat."
They easily conformed to the American convention of jocosity in their
talk; it perhaps no more represents the individual mood than the
convention of dulness among other people; but it seemed to make the young
man feel at home.
"Why, do you think it's uncomfortably warm?" he asked, from what March
perceived to be a meteorology of his own. He laughed and added, "It is
pretty summerlike," as if he had not thought of it before. He talked of
the big mail-boat, and said he would like to cross on such a boat as
that, and then he glanced at the possible advantage of having your own
steam-yacht like the one which he said they had just passed, so near that
you could see what a good time the people were having on board. He began
to speak to the Marches; his talk spread to the young couple across the
table; it visited the mother on the sofa in a remark which she might
ignore without apparent rejection, and without really avoiding the boy,
it glanced off toward the father and daughter, from whom it fell, to rest
with the gentleman at the head of the table.
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