And so she did try. She sat at the table with her unsmiling and calm sister, her unsmiling and sulky nephew, and she smiled for three; she talked, and in the end she made them smile, not because she was especially witty, but because her sweet, light spirit gave a glimmer to all her words. She was ridiculous, but she was charming; she made of that sober family dinner a high festival. And when they had finished:
“Oh, let’s have coffee in the garden, Bella!” she said.
“No!” said Mrs. Russell, startled. “We don’t have coffee, Louie. I think it keeps one awake.”
“But who doesn’t want to be awake on a night like this? Let’s be awake! Let’s have a little table on the lawn, and candles—candlelight under the trees is so wonderful, Bella!”
“Mary won’t like it!” whispered Mrs. Russell. “It means extra work for her.”
“I’ll do it! All alone!”
Mrs. Russell might have protested more, if she had not observed her son pushing the books and papers off the top of a small table in the next room. If he wanted it so, or if he were trying to atone, very well; she would agree to this absurd proposal.
So the table was placed in the back garden, and there Mrs. Russell and her son sat, to wait for Louie and the coffee. They sat there under the great dark beeches that rustled solemnly in the night wind and set the candles to flickering.
Candlelight wonderful under the trees? It was horrible; it was the most sorrowful, gloomy, bitter thing. Was that the leaves stirring, or a sigh from the boy? Mrs. Russell wanted to look at him, but dared not, for fear that their eyes should meet, and with what lay between them, they must not look into each other’s eyes. A burden to him—a burden too heavy for his young shoulders—
Louie came across the grass with the tray, and this time Geordie’s sigh was quite audible as he arose to take it from her.