To the relief of all save Mrs. Mayhew, Sibley dined with a couple of young, fast men, who enforced their invitation by the irresistible attraction of a bottle of wine.
"There is too much starch and dignity at that table to suit me, any way," he remarked. "There are those two model saints, who led our devotions last Sunday evening, flirting with ponderous gravity with that deep little school-ma'am, who has turned both their heads, but can't make up her mind which of them to capture, both being such marvellously good game for one of her class. Cute Yankee as she believes herself to be, she's a fool to think that either of them is more than playing with her. By Jupiter! but it would be sport to cut 'em both out; and I could do it if I were up here a week. Those who know the world know that such women cipher out these matters in the spirit of New England thrift, and you have only to mislead them with sufficient plausible data to capture them body and soul." And Sibley complacently sipped his wine as if he had stated all there was to be said on the subject. Few men prided themselves more on a profound knowledge of the world than he.
Ida's despondency while at dinner was so great she could not throw it off. Listlessly and wearily she barely tasted of the different courses as they were passed to her. She consciously made only one effort, and that was to appear utterly indifferent to Van Berg; and both circumstances and his contemptuous neglect made but little feigning necessary. The evening before had associated her so inseparably in his mind with Sibley, that he was beginning to regard her with aversion.
"Trivial natures are disturbed by trivial causes," he thought; "and she looks as if the world had turned black because Sibley has been lured from her side for an hour by a bottle of wine. He'll revive her again before supper."
"How wintry that old gentleman looks who is just entering!" Stanton remarked. "It makes one shiver to think of becoming as frosty and white as he."
"Oh, don't speak of being old!" cried Mrs. Mayhew. "Remember there are some at the table who are in greater danger of that final misfortune than you young people."
"Do you dread being old, Miss Burton?" Van Berg asked.
"No; but I do the process of growing old."
"For once we think alike, Miss Burton," said Ida abruptly. "To think of plodding on through indefinite dreary years toward the miserable conclusion of old age! and yet it is said nothing is so sweet as life."
"Really, Cousin, your advance down the ages reminds one more of a quickstep than of 'plodding,'" remarked Stanton.