Judge Blair reveled in meeting all these distinguished men; he enjoyed the flattery in their way of addressing and introducing him. But his conscience smote him when he saw Lavinia. He drew up a chair and sat beside her, holding his cigar at arm’s length. It was an excellent cigar, better than he ordinarily smoked, and the thin thread of smoke that wavered up from it filled the room almost instantly with its delicate perfume.
“Did my little girl think her father had deserted her?” he said, speaking of her in the third person, after the affectionate way of parents. “He must pay better attention to her. She must come down and meet the lawyers; they will be delighted; a justice of the Supreme Court has just come on from Washington! She will want to meet him!”
The judge paused and twisted his head about for a puff at his cigar, and then waited for Lavinia to glow at the prospect. But when she looked at him, and tried to smile again, he saw the glint of tears in her eyes.
“Why come, come, dear!” he said. “What’s the matter? Aren’t you having a good time? Never mind, when this meeting’s over we’ll go to Detroit, and maybe up the lakes for a little trip. That’ll bring the roses back!”
He pinched her cheeks playfully, but she did not respond; she looked at him pleadingly.
“Why, Lavinia,” he cried, “you aren’t homesick?”
She winked bravely to stem the flood of tears and then nodded.
“Well!” he said, nonplussed. “You know, dear, we can’t—”
The tears were brimming in her blue eyes, and he left his sentence uncompleted to go on:
“So you’re homesick, eh? For mama, and Connie?”