Although Ashley dawdled as he listened and sipped his wine languorously, no rustle of draperies rewarded his attentive ear, no graceful presence gladdened his expectant eye. And when at last he could linger no longer, he took up his hope even as he had laid it down, in the expectation of a luckier day.
"Come again, my dear sir, whenever you can. I am always glad to see you, and your presence cheers Captain Baynell. His father was my dearest friend. I felt his death as if he had been a brother. I have grown greatly attached to his son, who closely resembles him. Anything you can do for Captain Baynell I appreciate as a personal favor. Come again! Come again soon!"
Perhaps if Colonel Ashley had not been so bereft of the normal interests of life, in this interval of inactivity, his curiosity as to that fleeting glimpse of a beautiful woman might not have maintained its whetted edge. Perhaps constantly recurrent disappointment roused his persistence. He came again and yet again, and still he saw no member of the family save Judge Roscoe. Even the surgeon commented. "There is a considerable feminine garrison up there," he said one day; "I often hear mention of the ladies, but they never make a sally. I suspect the old judge is more of a fire-eater than he shows nowadays, for his womenfolks are evidently straight-out 'Secesh'!"
CHAPTER III
Captain Baynell himself, throughout his illness, saw naught of the feminine inmates of the house, but the first day of convalescence that he was able to be out of his room and to descend the stairs, unsteadily enough and holding to the balustrade all the way, he was very civilly greeted by Mrs. Gwynn when he suddenly appeared at the library door.
She glanced up with obvious surprise, then advanced with the light, airy elegance that was naturally appurtenant to her slight figure, and seemed no more a conscious pose or gait than the buoyancy of a bird or a butterfly. She shook hands with him, hoped he was better, congratulated him on the happy termination of so serious an illness, cautioned him against exposure to the chilly uncertain weather, drew a great arm-chair nearer to the fire, and as he seated himself she piled up some old numbers of Blackwood's Magazine and the Edinburgh Review on a little table close to his elbow.
Her regard for his comfort—casual, even official, so to speak, though it was, the attentive, considerate expression of her beautiful eyes, the kindly tones of her dulcet, drawling voice—affected him like a benediction. He was still feeble, tremulous, and his heart throbbed with sudden surges of emotion. He was grateful, recognizant, flattered, although the provision for his mental entertainment bore also the interpretation that he need not trouble himself to talk.
Therefore he affected to read, and she sat apparently oblivious of his presence, crocheting a fichu-like garment, called a "sontag" in those days, destined for a friend, evidently, not for her own sombre wear. The material was of an ultramarine blue zephyr, with a border of flecked black and white. She was making no great speed, for often the long, white bone needle fell from her listless grasp, and with her beautiful eyes on the fire, her face no longer a cold, impassive mask, but all unconscious, soft, wistful, sweet, showing her real identity, she would lose herself in revery till some interruption—Judge Roscoe's entrance, the "ladies" and their demands, old Ephraim seeking orders—would rouse her with a start as from a veritable dream.