Ivon did not answer, but led his companion to the mistress of the house, and went through the ceremony of leave-taking quietly, and as if nothing had happened; but his face was colorless, and the hand which touched Eva’s in parting, was cold as stone.
“Why, one would think the girl had rejected you, by the color of your face,” said Miss Spicer, as Ivon went with her from the room. He answered her very quietly,
“She has rejected me!”
CHAPTER XLIV.
CLOSING THE SHUTTERS.
Jared Boyce had a taste for society, and managed to enjoy a good deal of it from the side-walk and park-benches wherein he could get an hour or two in the day-time, or close the grocery early enough to witness the outgoings or incomings of a fashionable party at night. Of course, this great entertainment at the Carters had been the excitement of the week in that corner store. Innumerable were the errands Boyce had run to milliners, thread needle stores, and apothecaries, in behalf of his mistress, who was so completely absorbed in her preparations, that she generally forgot to count the change brought back from these little excursions—a circumstance out of which he had made considerable profit.
On the eventful night, Boyce was as busy as a bee running up and down stairs, crossing the street for yards of ribbon, or papers of pins, holding consultations with Kate Gorman, and haunting the stables to make certain that the carriage would come in time. Now and then he got a glimpse of the mistress, who made a general dressing-room of the whole second floor, and betrayed the progress of her toilet more frequently than she was conscious of. At such times Boyce would lean forward, with a hand on each knee, and exclaim, in the fullness of his admiration,
“Oh, my! Isn’t that dress agoing to put down the hull bilen of ’em. If there’s a more stupendous lady than she’ll be, I’d like to see her a going to the party, that’s all. Jim’s sister to think of evening herself agin us. White pigeons agin peacocks, with moons on their spread feathers! Bosh!”
Mrs. Smith heard these exclamations with no little elation; and Kate Gorman repeated them, with Hibernian improvements, that fairly took the good woman off her feet.
It was an important moment when Mrs. Smith descended to the store, with her red moire antique gathered up in voluminous folds around her person, and a huge bouquet in her hand.
When Boyce heard her step on the stairs, he fell to work at once, removed baskets of fruit, butter-tubs and fish-barrels from their places, and widened a safe passage for the gorgeous dress, which passed through, as it were, with a rustle and flutter of acknowledgment. This the mistress intensified, by a world of gracious thanks, and permission to close the store immediately after ten. This was exactly what Boyce had been aiming at, having made a private arrangement to go out with Kate Gorman.