Mr. Sylvester’s face as he asked the next question was comparatively cheerful. “Was the other man with whom he was talking, as dark and foreign as himself?”
“O no, he was round and jovial, a little too insinuating perhaps, in his way of speaking to ladies, but otherwise a a well enough appearing man.”
Mr. Sylvester bowed and looked at his watch. (Why do gentlemen always consult their watches even in the face of the clock?) “Ona, you are right,” said he, “it is time you were dressing for dinner.” And concluding with a word or two of sympathy as to the peculiar nature of Paula’s adventures as he called them, he hastened from the room and proceeded to his little refuge above.
“He has not asked me what became of the child,” thought Paula, with a certain pang of surprise. “I expected him to say, ‘Shall we not try and see the little fellow, Paula?’ if only to allow me to explain that the child’s father would not tell me where they lived. But the later affair has evidently put the child out of his head. And indeed it is only natural that a business man should be more interested in such a fact as I have related, than in the sprained arm of a wretched creature’s ‘little feller.’” And she turned to assist Ona, who had arisen from her couch and was now absorbed in the intricacies of an uncommonly elaborate toilet.
“Those men did not mention any names?” suddenly queried that lady, looking with an expression of careful anxiety, at the twist of her back hair, in the small hand-mirror she held over her shoulder.
“No,” said Paula, dropping a red rose into the blonde locks she was so carefully arranging. “He expressly said he did not know the name of the person to whom he alluded. It was a strange conversation for me to overhear, was it not?” she remarked, happy to have interested her cousin in anything out of the domains of fashion.
“I don’t know—certainly—of course—” returned Mrs. Sylvester with some incoherence. “Do you think red looks as well with this black as the lavender would do?” she rambled on in her lightest tone, pulling out a box of feathers.
Paula gave her a little wistful glance of disappointment and decided in favor of the lavender.
“I am bound to look well to-night if I never do so again,” said Ona. They were all going to a public reception at which a foreign lord was expected to be present. “How fortunate I am to have a perfect little hairdresser in my own family, without being obliged to send for some gossipy, fussy old Madame with her stories of how such and such a one looked when dressed for the Grand Duke’s ball, or how Mrs. So and So always gave her more than her price because she rolled up puffs so exquisitely.” And stopping to aid the deft girl in substituting the lavender feather for the red rose in her hair—she forgot to ask any more questions.