Just then, after a little pause in the conversation, Mrs. Bright suddenly asked her son whether he meant to go out in the evening.
“No,” he answered, promptly. “Not to-night. I wouldn’t go anywhere except to the club, and even there—well, everybody would be talking and asking questions, and that sort of thing. Besides,” he added, “cousin Katharine’s here.”
The change of tone as he spoke of Katharine was so apparent that Mrs. Bright smiled a little sadly. Her woman’s instinct had told her long ago that her son had very little chance.
The three had not been long in the library when a servant brought a card to Mrs. Bright. She glanced at it, somewhat surprised by the coming of an unexpected visitor, in these days when evening visits have disappeared from New York’s changeable civilization.
“It’s Archie Wingfield,” she said. “Funny!” she exclaimed. “Show Mr. Wingfield in,” she said to the servant.
A moment later Archibald Wingfield entered the room. In spite of himself, he paused a moment as he caught sight of Katharine.
“Oh!” he ejaculated, awkwardly, in a low voice.
Then he came forward, resolutely keeping his bold black eyes on Mrs. Bright’s face as he went up to her and shook hands. Katharine had understood the exclamation of astonishment, and felt the awkwardness of the situation. But as she had given up all hope of seeing Ralston alone that evening, she thought it was as well, on the whole, that some one else should have come to help the general conversation. Nevertheless, she would have chosen almost any one rather than her last rejected suitor.
Both she and Hamilton Bright watched the young fellow with involuntary admiration as he crossed the room and stood exchanging first words with Mrs. Bright. There is a fascination about physical superiority when it far outdoes all its surroundings and is altogether beyond competition which, perhaps, no other attraction exercises in the same degree at first sight.
Wingfield came to Katharine next. The rich blood rose in his brown cheeks.