I studied her with deep interest as we walked along, and no movement or accent of hers was lost upon me. Once she raised her hand—her wide sleeve slipped back and bared a lovely arm—to break off a long scimeter-shaped leaf from a bough overhead. Quicker than thought I sprang at the bough and snapped off the leaf in advance of her, and presented it with a low obeisance. She drew herself up with a look of indignant surprise, but instantly relented as though to a person whose eccentricities, for some reason or other, might better be excused. She did not, however, take the leaf,—it fluttered to the ground.
She was not like any other woman,—any woman I had ever seen before. You could not accuse her of hauteur, yet she bore herself like a royal personage, though with no suggestion of affecting that sort of an air. You had to take her as seriously as you would the Czar. I saw this in her brother’s attitude toward her. There was none of that condescension in his manner that there often is in our manner toward the women of our households. I began to wonder whether she might not be the queen of the realm! But she was not. She was simply a private citizen.
She sat at the dinner table with us, and divided the honors equally with Severnius.
I wish I could give you an idea of that dinner,—the dining-room, the service, the whole thing! It surpassed my finest conceptions of taste and elegance.
We sat down not merely to eat,—though I was hungry enough!—but to enjoy ourselves in other ways.
There was everything for the eye to delight in. The room was rich in artistic decorations upon which the rarest talent must have been employed. The table arrangements were superb; gold and silver, crystal, fine china, embroidered linen, flowers. And the food, served in many courses, was a happy combination of the substantial and the delicate. There was music—not too near—of a bright and lively character. Music enters largely into the life of these people. It seemed to me that something beat time to almost everything we did.
The conversation carried on between the brother and sister—in which I could take no more part than a deaf-mute—was, I felt sure, extremely entertaining if not important. My eyes served me well,—for one sense is quick to assume the burdens of another,—and I knew that the talk was not mere banter, nor was it simply the necessary exchange of words and opinions about everyday matters which must take place in families periodically, concerning fuel, and provisions, and servants, and water-tax, and the like. It took a much higher range. The faces of both were animated, their eyes beamed brightly upon each other. It was clear that the brother did not talk down to her understanding, rather he talked up to it,—or no, they were on a level with each other, the highest level of both, for they held each other up to their best. However, Elodia had been away for a couple of days, I learned, and absence gives a bloom of newness which it is delightful to brush off.
I did not detect any of the quality we call chivalry in Severnius’ pose, nor of its complement in hers. Though one would hardly expect that between brothers and sisters anywhere. Still, we have a way with our near women relations which never ignores the distinction between the sexes; we humor them, patronize them, tyrannize over them. And they defer to, and exalt us, and usually acknowledge our superiority.
It was not so with this pair. They respected and honored each other equally. And there was a charming camaraderie between them, the same as if they had both been men—or women, if you single out the right kind.