“I must confess I don't think the knowledge would improve her!” said Beecher, with a laugh.
A fierce and savage glance from Davis, however, very quickly arrested his jocularity; and Beecher, in a graver tone, resumed: “It was a deuced fine thing of you, Grog, to do this. There 's not another fellow living would have bad the head to think of it But now that she has come home to you, how do you mean to carry on the campaign? A girl like that can't live secluded from the world,—she must go out into society? Have you thought of that?”
“I have thought of it,” rejoined Davis, bluntly, but in a tone that by no means invited further inquiry.
“Her style and her manner fit her for the best set anywhere—”
“That's where I intend her to be,” broke in Davis.
“I need scarcely tell as clever a fellow as you,” said Beecher, mildly, “that there's nothing so difficult as to find footing among these people. Great wealth may obtain it, or great patronage. There are women in London who can do that sort of thing; there are just two or three such, and you may imagine how difficult it is to secure their favor.”
“They 're all cracked teacups, those women you speak of; one has only to know where the flaw is, and see how easily managed they are!”
Beecher smiled at this remark; he chuckled to himself, too, to see that for once the wily Grog Davis had gone out of his depth, and adventured to discuss people and habits of which he knew nothing; but, unwilling to prolong a controversy so delicate, he hurried away to his room to dress. Davis, too, retired on a similar errand, and a student of life might have been amused to have taken a peep into the two dressing-rooms. As for Beecher, it was but the work of a few minutes to array himself in dinner costume. It was a routine task that he performed without a thought on its details. All was ready at his hand; and even to the immaculate tie, which seemed the work of patience and skill, he despatched the whole performance in less than a quarter of an hour. Not so Davis: he ransacked drawers and portmanteaus; covered the bed, the chairs, and the table with garments; tried on and took off again; endeavored to make colors harmonize, or hit upon happy contrasts. He was bent on appearing a “swell;” and, unquestionably, when he did issue forth, with a canary-colored vest, and a green coat with gilt buttons, his breast a galaxy of studs and festooned chains, it would have been unfair to say he had not succeeded.
Beecher had but time to compliment him on his “get up,” when Miss Davis entered. Though her dress was simply the quiet costume of a young unmarried girl, there was in her carriage and bearing, as she came in, all the graceful ease of the best society; and lighted up by the lamps of the apartment, Beecher saw, to his astonishment, the most beautiful girl he had ever beheld. It was not alone the faultless delicacy of her face, but there was that mingled gentleness and pride, that strange blending of softness and seriousness, which sit so well on the high-born, giving a significance to every gesture or word of those whose every movement is so measured, and every syllable so carefully uttered. “Why was n't she a countess in her own right?” thought he; “that girl might have all London at her feet.”
The dinner went on very pleasantly. Davis, too much occupied in listening to his daughter or watching the astonishment of Beecher, scarcely ever spoke; but the others chatted away about whatever' came uppermost in a light and careless tone that delighted him.