Thus adjured, Torres stepped forward, took the puzzle from a table, and returned with it to his place. Here he stood still again, holding his prize solemnly.
"Play with it," said Manuel; "I never saw such a fellow! Move the rings up and down."
"I took it because you wished me to do so," replied the Cuban, with dignity. "But to play with it is impossible; why should I play with an ivory toy?—I am not a child."
Here the gray head of Pompey appeared at the front drawing-room door. The old servant waited respectfully until he had caught his mistress's eye; he then made a low bow, with his hands folded before him—"Miss C'roo am serbed."
Dr. Kirby offered his arm to Mrs. Rutherford, Mr. Moore offered his to Mrs. Harold; Mrs. Carew waved Winthrop towards Mrs. Thorne, while she herself took the arm of Manuel Ruiz. Garda was left to Torres, who, thus unexpectedly made happy, accompanied her into the hall, still bearing his puzzle.
"What in the world are you carrying?" she asked, laughing.
"It is a toy of ivory which Manuel insisted that I should take. With your permission I will now lay it aside." And he deposited it carefully upon a chair.
The little procession now came to a pause, Mrs. Carew having asked her dearest Katrina to look at a portrait upon the wall. "It was taken the year after my marriage," she explained, watching for the increased glow through the dining-room door which should proclaim to her anxious eyes the arrival of the astral lamp in its destined place.
"I do not need a portrait, Betty; I have one in my memory," replied Mrs. Rutherford, graciously. She could not see the picture without her glasses, but she gazed at the gilt frame with an interested air, looking at it with her head now a little on one side, now on the other, as if to get the right light.
"I have never considered this portrait a faithful representation of our friend," observed Dr. Kirby. He could not see even the frame, but he surveyed the wall with disapprobation. "It quite fails to give her vivacity, which is so characteristic a feature. But what painter's brush, what limner's art, can fix upon canvas that delicate, that, I may say, intangible charm which belongs to the fairer portion of our humanity? It is, and must always be, a hopeless task."