"This is a pleasant surprise. I was hoping all the time. Only Miss Mason is such a torment. She was quite sure you wouldn't come. We almost quarreled about it this morning. And yet she is a charming girl. This house is the very embodiment of comfort and delight. I suppose you know I met the Masons at the inauguration? Oh, you can't think how disappointed I was! I had counted so on seeing you."
Marian Floyd glanced in the speaker's eyes and hers fell, while a fluttering color crept up her face and her whole body seemed to thrill as at the touch of some subtle magnetism. She suddenly wished he would go away; he seemed to take the strength out of her.
"Are you glad to see me?" in a breathless sort of way that seemed to demand an affirmative.
"Yes." She did not mean to say it. The word came of its own accord. It was almost as if she had answered it to another question.
"Come, fellows," began Louis, "let us drop our plebeian garb, with its ancient, fishlike smell."
"That's good, considering there wasn't fish enough to make any sort of smell. Keep truth on your side."
"And misquoting Shakspere, when it has been presented to us all winter in every aspect! Williamsburg has had a feast or a surfeit from college exercises to strolling players—some very good ones, too. Jaqueline, have you ordered the horses?"
"Why, no!"
"Then go at once, while we make ourselves beautiful. We shall not have too much time."
Mr. Carrington had gone immediately to his room, and came down as Jaqueline was going through the hall.