“Do you think he likes me?”
“Likes? He’s positively drivelling. Look at ’im!”
Honoria’s glance met Wickham’s—he was at the rail, pretending to listen to Catherine. His “drivelling” expression as he came at the call in her eyes seemed to please Honoria mightily. With the last going-ashore gong Hutt came bringing Evelyn’s letter. Frothingham at once read enough of it to interpret her cablegram:
As you doubtless know, Georgie’s father-in-law died in New York a few weeks ago. He left them I don’t know how much—something huge. And George is giving Gwen a dot of three hundred thousand. She was just here with the news—she came to me the instant she heard it. As she was leaving she said: “Won’t you give Arthur my love when you write?” It’s the first time she’s spoken of you to me since you left. And when I said, “I’ll cable it to him,” she blushed—you should have seen her, Arthur—and heard her say, “Oh, thank you, dear!”
“Good chap, George,” murmured Frothingham. “The right sort clean through. He wouldn’t let Gwen and me be cheated as he and Evelyn were.... Poor Evelyn!... Gwen and me!” He began a sigh that changed into his faint smile of self-mockery. “Just my beastly, rotten luck—not to be sure it’s good luck when it finally does come.”
He went to the rail and his glance sought out and rested upon the little group of his friends on the crowded pier across the widening gap between Nelly’s land and him. Wickham took Honoria’s blue chiffon parasol and waved it; Catherine fluttered her handkerchief. He lifted his hat and bowed. Long after they were lost to him in the merge of the crowd they could make out his loud light tweeds and scarlet bow, and once they caught the flash of a ray of sunlight on his eyeglass—like a characteristic farewell look.
It was five o’clock in a late September afternoon. As usual, on the low table on the porch viewing the Italian garden at Beauvais Hall was the big tea tray with its array of antique silver and old porcelain, the cake and the toast and the slices of bread and butter. Round it were Evelyn and Gwen and Frothingham—Gwen in a shirtwaist and riding skirt, Frothingham in the slovenly, baggy flannels of an English gentleman in the seclusion of his country-seat. No one was speaking and the quiet was profound. Presently Evelyn rose and went through the open French window into the drawing room. Gwen was watching Frothingham; he was watching the peacocks as they strutted with tails spread in splendour.
“I’m always wondering that one of those clever, handsome American women didn’t steal your heart—if you’ve got one,” said Gwen.
He slowly withdrew his gaze from the peacocks and fixed it upon her with his monocled expression that might mean everything or nothing. She chose to read everything into it and flushed with pleasure. And her left hand, moving nervously among the silver and porcelain, revealed on its third finger a narrow, gold band.