He nodded energetically.
She went behind his chair. Thomas was in wait there still. Down here he seemed to raise a wall of aloofness between himself and her, to wear a magnificent air, all cold and haughty, that was quite foreign to the nursery. As she passed him, she dimpled up at him saucily. But it failed to slack the starchy tenseness of his visage.
She turned another corner and curtsied her way along the opposite side of the table. On this side were precisely as many high-backed chairs as on the other. And now, "You adorable child!" cried the ladies, and "Haw! Haw! Don't the rest of us get a smile?" said the men.
When all the curtseying was over, and the last corner was turned, she paused. "And what is my daughter going to say about the rabbit in the cabbage?" asked her mother.
There was a man seated on either hand. Gwendolyn gave each a quick glance. At Johnnie Blake's she had been often alone with her father and mother during that one glorious week. But in town her little confidences, for the most part, had to be made in just this way—under the eye of listening guests and servants, in a low voice.
"I like the rabbit," she answered, "but my Puffy Bear was nicer, only he got old and shabby, and so—"
At this point Jane took one quick step forward.
"But if you'd come up to the nursery soon," Gwendolyn hastened to add. "Would you, moth—er?"
"Yes, indeed, dear."
Gwendolyn went up to Jane, who was waiting, rooted and rigid, close by. The reddish eyes of the nurse-maid fairly bulged with importance. Her lips were sealed primly. Her face was so pale that every freckle she had stood forth clearly. How strangely—even direly—the great dining-room affected her—who was so at ease in the nursery! No smile, no wink, no remark, either lively or sensible, ever melted the ice of her countenance. And it was with a look almost akin to pity that Gwendolyn held out a hand.