“Not at all!” she said; and as his expression still remained gloomy, she laughed. “Won’t you open the door for me? I made coffee for them because I thought it might do them good—especially your cousin Fred.”
Harlan uttered an exclamation of reproach addressed to himself: “Idiot! To let you stand there holding that heavy tray!” He would have taken it from her, but she objected.
“No; you might spill something. Just open the door for me.”
He obeyed, then followed her into the drawing-room and closed the door. Before him, in a damask-covered armchair, was seated his second cousin, Mr. Frederic Oliphant, a young gentleman of considerable pretensions to elegance, especially when he had spent an evening at the club. In fact, since the installation of this club, which the well-to-do of the town had not recognized as a necessary bit of comfort until recently, Fred had formed the habit of arriving home every evening with such a complete set of eighteenth-century manners that there was no little uneasiness about him in his branch of the Oliphant family.
At present he was leaning forward in his chair, a hand politely cupped about his ear to give an appearance of more profound attention to what Dan was saying. The latter stood at the other end of the room, before the fire, and with great earnestness addressed this ardent listener; but Harlan was relieved to see that although his brother’s eyes were extraordinarily bright and his cheeks ruddier than usual, there appeared no other symptoms, except his eloquence, of his dalliance at the club. “No, and always no!” he was protesting as the door opened. “If we lose that, we lose everything! This country——”
But here Fred sprang up to take the tray from Martha. “Permit me! Indeed permit me!” he begged. “It must not be said of an Oliphant that he allowed a lady to perform menial——”
“No, no!” She laughed, and evading his assistance, set the tray upon a table. “Do sit down, Fred.”
“Since it is you who command it!” he said gallantly and returned to his chair; but on the way perceived the gloomy Harlan and bowed to him. “My dear sir!” he said. “This is an honour as unexpected as it is gracious; an honour not only to our hostess but to——”
“Sit down!” Harlan said brusquely.
“Since it is you who command it!” the other returned with the happy air of a man who delivers an entirely novel bit of repartee; then bowed again and complied.