"Mr. Holmes, has it never occurred to you that in friendship, as in love, a girl of Nellie Bayard's age would prefer some one much nearer her own years?"
He drew slowly back from the piano and stood at his full height.
"The doctor is calling us to the dining-room, Miss Forrest; may I offer my arm?" was his only reply, and she arose and went with him.
They found the entire party grouped about the table, which was now decked with a great punch-bowl of beautiful workmanship. A present, the doctor explained with evident pride, from Baron Wallewski, of the Russian Legation at Washington, whom he had had the honor of pulling through a siege of insomnia two years before. It was more than anything else to display the beauty of this costly gift that he had called them once more around his board, but, since they were there, he would beg them to fill their glasses with a punch of his own composition,—"there's not a headache in a Heidelberg tun of it,"—and pledged with them the health of the distinguished donor.
A ring came at the front door as Robert was standing, tray in hand, at his master's elbow. "Say I'm engaged, if any one inquires for me," said Bayard, and launched forth into some reminiscence of the days when he and Wallewski and Bodisco and others of that ilk were at Old Point Comfort for a week together. Robert, returning from the front hall, stood in silence, like the well-trained menial he was, until his master finished his narration and the guests had sipped the toast. It was a performance of some minutes' duration, and at last the doctor turned.
"Who was it?" he said.
"Mr. McLean, sah."
"Wanted to see me."
"No, sah. The commanding officer, sah. He wouldn't come in; he's standing in the hall yet, sah. Said s'cuse him, but 'twas mos' impawtant."
Major Miller instantly set down his punch-glass, and strode out through the parlor into the front hall. It was a season of incessant rumors and alarms, and the party could not forbear listening.