CHAPTER XLI.
Charley hurried along the upper hall, and arriving at the head of the stairs, blew his nose three times with a certain fierce defiance. This strictly commonplace operation he repeated in a subdued form as he neared the dining-room door, and stopping again, with one hand upon the knob, he passed the other again and again across his forehead and eyes, as though he had been an antiquated belle who would smooth out the wrinkles before entering a ball-room. Then, with that severe look of determined reticence of which I have spoken above, he entered the dining-room; exciting in all breasts, male and female alike, a keen but hopeless curiosity. This feeling, however, soon subsided; for the Don had entered shortly after Charley, and, begging Mrs. Carter to excuse his tardiness, had taken his seat and passed out of our minds. For besides that the dinner was good and the wine generous, most of us had our own little interests to look after. Jones, for example, and Jones’s girl were too happy to care whether any one in the world were late or early for dinner. My grandfather, Mrs. Carter, and myself were sufficiently occupied as hosts,—and Charley, too, though he devoted his time principally to one guest. As a matter of fact, therefore, during the early part of the dinner the Don sat unobserved by the greater part of the company; and but for one faithful pair of eyes, I should have had nothing to record.
In the spirit of mischief, Alice had so manœuvred that the seat left vacant for the Don was between Lucy and little Laura. “Won’t it be sweet, mother, to see all three of them in a row,—Lucy—Mr. Don Miff—Laura? Quite a little family party!”
“Very well,” replied Lucy, laughing, “arrange it as you will; I am sure I should like very well to sit by ‘the Don.’ Do you still call him by that name?”
“Of course. It has a grand sound, and grand sounds, you know, are precious to the female heart.”
The Don’s looks when he entered were downcast, his manner hesitating, and his voice, when he made his apologies to Mrs. Carter, scarcely audible. Charley, the moment the Don entered, had begun stammering away at Alice with a surprising volubility, and in a voice loud for him. He never stammered worse; and such a pother did he make with his m’s and his p’s that he drew upon himself the smiling attention of all the company; so that even Jones and his girl ceased murmuring, for a moment, their fatuous nothings. It was under cover of this rattling volley that the Don had taken his seat and begun intently to examine the monogram on his fork.
“Will you have some soup?” asked Charley, in a frank, off-hand way.
The commonplace nature of this question was an obvious relief to the Don, and he raised his eyes and looked about him. “Thanks, no soup. What!” said he, for the first time espying little Laura seated by his side, “you here by me!” And taking her sunny head between his hands, he bent over and kissed her on the forehead.
A mother’s smile trembled in Mrs. Poythress’s eyes. “She is a very little diner-out,” said she.
At the sound of Mrs. Poythress’s voice a shade passed over the Don’s face. “He’s the one, mumma, that built me the block-houses.” And the smile came back.
Mary watched the play of the Don’s features during the triangular conversation that followed between himself, Mrs. Poythress, and Laura, and was much puzzled. Light and shadow, shadow and light, chased each other over his changeful countenance like patches of cloud across a sunny landscape. Presently, chancing to turn his head, his eyes fell upon Lucy, seated on his right, and Mary’s interest grew deeper.
“You on my right and Laura on my left! I feel that I am indeed among friends.”
“You may be sure of that,” said Lucy, in her low and sweet, but earnest voice.
The Don’s pleasure at finding that Lucy was his neighbor at table was very obvious, and we must not blame Mary if it gave her a pang to see it. She could not but recall the stranger’s manifest interest in Lucy when he first met her, at breakfast, in Richmond. Then she had not cared. Now it was different. For the next half-hour, while contributing her share to the conversation at her end of the table, she had managed to see everything that took place between the Don and Lucy. She saw everything, and yet she seemed to herself to see nothing. The meaning of it all—that she could not unravel. All she knew was that she was miserable; and her wretchedness made her unjust. She was vexed at Lucy,—vexed for the strangest of reasons; but the human heart—if the plagiarism may be pardoned—is full of inconsistencies. Had Lucy made eyes at the Don, coquetted with him, Mary would doubtless have thought it unkind on her part; though that would have been unjust, as Lucy had no cause to suspect that her friend felt any special interest in the mysterious stranger. It was the entire absence of everything of this kind in Lucy’s manner that nettled Mary. In her eyes the Don was a hero of the first water. Why didn’t Lucy try to weave fascinations around such an one as he? What kind of a man was she looking for? Did she expect the whole world to fall at her feet, whence to choose?—or did she, perhaps,—and the thought shot through her heart with a keen pang,—did Lucy feel that the quarry was hers without an effort on her part to grasp it?
The Don’s deportment, too, if incomprehensible, was at least irritating. “His lordship,” thought she, bitterly, “has hardly vouchsafed me a glance since he took his seat. Yet, before the Poythresses came—there he sits now, patting Laura’s head in an absent way, and studying Lucy’s features, as she talks, as though he were a portrait-painter. One would think he had quietly adopted the entire Poythress family. Upon my word, Mr. Sphinx is a marvel of coolness! How little he talks, too!—and yet he has contrived to bring Lucy out wonderfully. She is rattling away like a child, telling him about herself and all the family. How interested he seems! Heavens, what a look!”
“Yes,” she had heard Lucy say, “Laura is a regular Poythress, with her high color and golden hair; mine is just like mother’s. I don’t mean now,” said she, with a little laugh and glancing at Mrs. Poythress’s snow-white hair; “but mother’s was coal-black once. It turned white—years ago—suddenly;” and she sighed softly, with downcast, pensive eyes, so that she did not observe the look of pain that her words had wrought and that had startled Mary. Looking up and seeing his face averted, Lucy thought he was admiring her little sister’s curls. “What beautiful hair Laura has!”
“Lovely,” replied he, tossing a mass of ringlets on the tips of his fingers.
“Won’t you make me a boat, after dinner, with rudder and sails and everything?” And Laura looked up into his troubled face with a confiding, sunny smile.