I hope his mother will come to visit him while he's in the
hotel. I would give a good deal to see her. Fancy her coming down in
her bloomers, and the poor fellow being ashamed of her? It would be
a very good subject for a play. Does she wear a hat or a bonnet?
What sort of head-gear goes with that 'sleek odalisque' style of
dress? A turban, I suppose."
"Mrs. Barker," said the minister, unable to deny himself the
fleeting comfort of the editor's humorous view of the situation, "is
as far from a 'sleek odalisque' as any lady I've ever seen, in spite
of her oriental costume. If I remember, her _yashmak_ was not
gathered at the ankles, but hung loose like occidental trousers; and
the day we met she wore simply her own hair. There was not much of
it on top, and she had it cut short in the neck. She was rather a
terrible figure. Her having ever been married would have been
inconceivable, except for her son."
"I should like to have seen her," said Evans, laughing back in his
chair.
"She was worth seeing as a survival of the superficial fermentation
of the period of our social history when it was believed that women
could be like men if they chose, and ought to be if they ever meant
to show their natural superiority. But she was not picturesque."
"The son's very handsome. I can see that the lady boarders think him
so.
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