'To tell the truth,' replied the good lady, 'I was very [{183}] glad to let you take my place. I cannot say I enjoy that sort of music myself. It gives me a headache.'
Margaret entered at this point in a marvellous 'creation' of Chinese crape, of the most delicate shade of heliotrope. Her dressmaker called it also a tea-gown, but Mr. Van Torp would have thought it 'quite appropriate' for a 'dinner-dance' at Bar Harbor.
'My dear child,' said Mrs. Rushmore, 'how long you were in getting back from the theatre! I began to fear that something had happened!'
'We walked home very slowly,' said Margaret, with a pleasant smile.
'Ah? You went for a little walk to get some air?'
'We just walked home very slowly, in order to breathe the air,' Margaret answered innocently.
It dawned on Mr. Van Torp that the dignified Mrs. Rushmore was not quite devoid of a sense of humour. It also occurred to him that her repetition of the question to Margaret, and the latter's answer, must have revealed to her the fact that the two had agreed upon what they should say, since they used identically the same words, and that they therefore had an understanding about something they preferred to conceal from her. Nothing could have given Mrs. Rushmore such profound satisfaction as this, and it revealed itself in her bright smiles and her anxiety that both Margaret and Van Torp should, if possible, over-eat themselves with the excellent things she had been at pains to provide for them and for herself. For she was something of an [{184}] epicure and her dinners in Versailles were of good fame, even in Paris.
Great appetites are generally silent, like the sincerest affections. Margaret was very hungry, and Mr. Van Torp was both hungry and very much in love. Mrs. Rushmore was neither, and she talked pleasantly while tasting each delicacy with critical satisfaction.
'By the bye,' she said at last, when she saw that the millionaire was backing his foretopsail to come to anchor, as Captain Brown might have expressed it, 'I hope you have not had any further trouble about your rooms, Mr. Van Torp.'
'None at all, that I know of,' answered the latter. 'My man told me nothing.'