“Yes,” said Miss Belinda, with a significant glance at the table, “everything.”
Paula followed her glance, saw the silver box with its wealth of blossoms, and faltered back with a quick look at Mr. Sylvester’s grave and watchful countenance.
“Mr. Ensign seems to be possessed of clairvoyance,” observed Miss Belinda easily. “How he could know that you were to be in town to-day, I cannot imagine.”
“I wrote him in my last letter that in all probability I should spend the holidays with Mr. Sylvester,” explained Paula simply, but with a slow and deepening flush, that left the roses she contemplated nothing of which to boast. “I did so, because he proposed to visit Grotewell on Christmas.”
There was a short silence in the room, then Mr. Sylvester rose, and remarking with polite composure, “It is a very pretty remembrance,” led the way into the dining-room. Paula with a slow drooping of her head quickly followed, while Miss Belinda brought up the rear, with the look of a successful diplomat.
A meal in the Sylvester mansion was always a formal affair, but this was more than formal. A vague oppression seemed to fill the air; an oppression which Miss Belinda’s stirring conversation found it impossible to dissipate. In compliance to Mr. Sylvester’s request, she sat at the head of the table, and was the only one who seemed able to eat anything. For one thing she had never seen Ona in that post of honor, but Paula and Mr. Sylvester could not forget the graceful form that once occupied that seat. The first meal above a grave, no matter how long it has been dug, must ever seem weighted with more or less unreality.
Besides, with Paula there was a vague unsettled feeling, as if some delicate inner balance had been too rudely shaken. She longed to fly away and think, and she was obliged to sit still and talk.
The end of the meal was a relief to all parties. Miss Belinda went up stairs, thoughtfully shaking her firm head; Mr. Sylvester sat down again to his paper, and Paula advanced towards the dainty gift that awaited her inspection on the library table. But half way to it she paused. A strange shyness had seized her. With Mr. Sylvester sitting there, she dared not approach this delicate testimonial of another’s affection. She did not know as she wished to. Her eyes stole in hesitation to the floor. Suddenly Mr. Sylvester spoke:
“Why do you not look at your pretty present, Paula?”
She started, gave him a quick glance, and advanced hurriedly towards the table; but scarcely had she reached it when she paused, turned and hastened over to his side. He was still reading, or appearing to read, but she saw his hand tremble where it grasped the sheet, though his face with its clear cut profile, shone calm and cold against the dark background of the wall beyond.