They all dined together; and afterwards, as there seemed scarcely any way of eluding the engagement, Alick took Anna to the Opera.
It seemed really discourteous, as Alexander had a whole private box to himself and Anna, that he would not invite Dick to take a seat in it; but in fact he could not bring himself to do such violence to his own feelings of rivalry.
Dick went to the opera, however; and he occupied an orchestra chair in a much better position for seeing and hearing than was Alexander’s and Anna’s private box.
And when the curtain fell upon the first act, he came around to the box, without seeming to think that he was intruding, and gayly and good-humoredly talked and laughed with his cousins, until the curtain rose upon the second act. And in the intervals of all the succeeding acts he came round to their box. Though there were two vacant seats, Alexander never once invited him to take one of them. Anna always did, however, and pressed him cordially to sit down. But Dick always gayly declined, and merely leaning over the back of one of the unoccupied chairs, talked and laughed until the rising of the curtain warned him to make his bow and retreat.
The performance was a very long one, so that it was some time after twelve o’clock when Alexander took Anna back to the hotel and gave her up to the charge of her grandfather.
And it was after two o’clock, when, half frozen and half famished, worn out in body and harassed in mind, he reached his home.
As on the evening previous the lights from the little drawing-room windows, gleaming through the wintry woods, cheered him on his approach and warned him that his loving wife was still up and waiting to welcome him home.
And there he found a bright fire, a warm supper and a happy face to comfort him. As before she forbore to reproach or to question him, and she received his voluntary explanation without hesitation and without doubt;—but this explanation, while true to the letter as far as it went, was false in the spirit—giving her the impression that still “the troublesome business connected with his father’s will” detained him in town.
Much of his conversation now, while being true to the letter, was false in the spirit. But how could this possibly be expected to last?
Day after day Alexander rode in to town. Night after night he came back, never earlier than one o’clock, sometimes as late as three or four; for on these occasions he would have to escort his cousin to a ball where the festivities were kept up until near daylight. And though Anna being in half mourning refrained from dancing, she seldom retired from the scene until one or two o’clock.