“I supposed that surely you would receive an invitation, Señor Gale,” the army officer remarked. “The American minister and Miss Throgmorton are going to be there, so it is queer that you should have been overlooked.”
“Maybe mine will arrive later,” the reporter said. “Are you going to attend?”
The other announced that he expected to be among those present. “I was going to send my regrets at first, on account of my eyesight,” he declared. “I was afraid that with these glasses I should not be exactly an ornament at the festive board, and in such a well-lighted room I would not dare to leave them off. But Miss Throgmorton insisted upon my accepting the invitation.”
“Miss Throgmorton?” There was an inflection of surprise in Gale’s tone.
The gallant captain smiled complacently. “She told me that it would spoil the whole evening for her if I were not present. So what could I do, my friend? Of course, as a gentleman and a soldier, I could not disappoint a lady—especially one so charming as the daughter of the American minister.”
Gale looked thoughtfully at his wine. “I wonder why she should be so anxious to have you there,” he muttered. “It strikes me as being deucedly queer.”
His companion’s manner showed that he resented the remark. “I see nothing so very queer about it,” he said indignantly. “I do not wish to appear boastful. Otherwise, perhaps, it would not be difficult for me to explain why Miss Throgmorton finds such evident pleasure in my society.”
CHAPTER XXXIX.
CAUSE FOR ANXIETY.
When Gale returned to the embassy he found an invitation to the dinner awaiting him. Minister Throgmorton had mentioned to Captain Cortrell that he had a guest stopping at his home, and the commander of the warship had been prompt to take the hint. The reporter accepted the invitation with alacrity. As a rule, he was not fond of formal dinners. In the course of his reportorial experience he had attended many of them in an official capacity, and he had come to regard such functions as decidedly boresome. The solid and liquid refreshments were, in his opinion, but poor compensation for the ordeal of having to listen to the long-winded, dry speeches which always came afterward. But he expected to find much to interest him at this dinner on the battleship. What his friend Captain Reyes had told him made him so eager to attend that even if he had not received an invitation he had fully decided that he was going to find some way of being present.
Virginia’s behavior increased his suspicion that there was a peculiar significance attached to the affair. The girl appeared strangely anxious and ill at ease. If she had been a débutante looking forward to her first formal party, she could scarcely have evinced more nervousness and considering that, because of her father’s position, such festivities were common occurrences in her life, her state of mind struck the observant newspaper man as being somewhat remarkable.