But Gloria exulted in each
one, tearing at the tissue-paper and excelsior with the rapaciousness of
a dog digging for a bone, breathlessly seizing a ribbon or an edge of
metal and finally bringing to light the whole article and holding it up
critically, no emotion except rapt interest in her unsmiling face.
"Look, Anthony!"
"Darn nice, isn't it!"
No answer until an hour later when she would give him a careful account
of her precise reaction to the gift, whether it would have been improved
by being smaller or larger, whether she was surprised at getting it,
and, if so, just how much surprised.
Mrs. Gilbert arranged and rearranged a hypothetical house, distributing
the gifts among the different rooms, tabulating articles as "second-best
clock" or "silver to use _every_ day," and embarrassing Anthony and
Gloria by semi-facetious references to a room she called the nursery.
She was pleased by old Adam's gift and thereafter had it that he was a
very ancient soul, "as much as anything else." As Adam Patch never quite
decided whether she referred to the advancing senility of his mind or to
some private and psychic schema of her own, it cannot be said to have
pleased him.
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