The dinner was plain, but perfect of its kind. The young hostess seemed to perform her office with a certain degree of desperate determination. She looked at a chicken and then at Coningsby, and murmured something which he understood. Sometimes she informed herself of his tastes or necessities in more detail, by the medium of her father, whom she treated as a sort of dragoman; in this way: ‘Would not Mr. Coningsby, papa, take this or that, or do so and so?’ Coningsby was always careful to reply in a direct manner, without the agency of the interpreter; but he did not advance. Even a petition for the great honour of taking a glass of sherry with her only induced the beautiful face to bow. And yet when she had first seen him, she had addressed him even with emotion. What could it be? He felt less confidence in his increased power of conversation. Why, Theresa Sydney was scarcely a year older than Miss Millbank, and though she did not certainly originate like Lady Everingham, he got on with her perfectly well.
Mr. Millbank did not seem to be conscious of his daughter’s silence: at any rate, he attempted to compensate for it. He talked fluently and well; on all subjects his opinions seemed to be decided, and his language was precise. He was really interested in what Coningsby had seen, and what he had felt; and this sympathy divested his manner of the disagreeable effect that accompanies a tone inclined to be dictatorial. More than once Coningsby observed the silent daughter listening with extreme attention to the conversation of himself and her father.
The dessert was remarkable. Millbank was proud of his fruit. A bland expression of self-complacency spread over his features as he surveyed his grapes, his peaches, his figs.
‘These grapes have gained a medal,’ he told Coningsby. ‘Those too are prize peaches. I have not yet been so successful with my figs. These however promise, and perhaps this year I may be more fortunate.’
‘What would your brother and myself have given for such a dessert at Eton!’ said Coningsby to Miss Millbank, wishing to say something, and something too that might interest her.
She seemed infinitely distressed, and yet this time would speak.
‘Let me give you some,’ He caught by chance her glance immediately withdrawn; yet it was a glance not only of beauty, but of feeling and thought. She added, in a hushed and hurried tone, dividing very nervously some grapes, ‘I hardly know whether Oswald will be most pleased or grieved when he hears that you have been here.’
‘And why grieved?’ said Coningsby.
‘That he should not have been here to welcome you, and that your stay is for so brief a time. It seems so strange that after having talked of you for years, we should see you only for hours.’
‘I hope I may return,’ said Coningsby, ‘and that Millbank may be here to welcome me; but I hope I may be permitted to return even if he be not.’