Through One Administration

by Frances Hodgson Burnett

"Ah, come now!" said Richard, not quite so easily, "that is nonsense! You have no ulterior motives."

She opened her plumy, dove-colored fan and came nearer him.

"There is nothing meretricious about me," she said.

"I am softly clad in dove color; a few clusters of pansies adorn me; I am covered from throat to wrists; I have not a jewel about me. Could the effect be better?"

"No, it could not," he replied, but suddenly he felt a trifle uncomfortable again, and wondered what was hidden behind the inscrutable little gaze she afterwards fixed upon the fire.

But when Blundel appeared, which he did rather early, he felt relieved again. Nothing could have been prettier than her greeting of him, or more perfect in its attainment of the object of setting him at his ease. It must be confessed that he was not entirely at his ease when he entered, his experience not having been of a nature to develop in him any latent love for general society. He had fought too hard a fight to leave him much time to know women well, and his superficial knowledge of them made him a trifle awkward, as it occasionally renders other men astonishingly bold. In a party of men all his gifts displayed themselves; in the presence of women he was afraid that less substantial fellows had the advantage of him,—men who could not tell half so good a story or make half so exhilarating a joke. As to this special dinner he had not been particularly anxious to count himself among the guests, and was not very certain as to how Planefield had beguiled him into accepting the invitation.

But ten minutes after he had entered the room he began to feel mollified. Outside the night was wet and unpleasant, and not calculated to improve a man's temper; the parlors glowing with fire-light and twinkling wax candles were a vivid and agreeable contrast to the sloppy rawness. The slender, dove-colored figure, with its soft, trailing draperies, assumed more definitely pleasant proportions, and in his vague, inexperienced, middle-aged fashion he felt the effect of it. She had a nice way, this little woman, he decided; no nonsense or airs and graces about her: an easy manner, a gay little laugh. He did not remember exactly afterward what it was she said which first wakened him up, but he found himself laughing and greatly amused, and when he made a witticism he felt he had reason to be proud of, the gay little peal of laughter which broke forth in response had the most amazingly exhilarating effect upon him, and set him upon his feet for the evening. Women seldom got all the flavor of his jokes. He had an idea that some of them were a little afraid of them and of him, too. The genuine mirth in Bertha's unstudied laughter was like wine to him, and was better than the guffaws of a dozen men, because it had a finer and a novel flavor. After the joke and the laugh the ice was melted, and he knew that he was in the humor to distinguish himself.

Planefield discovered this the moment he saw him, and glanced at Richard, who was brilliant with good spirits.

"She's begun well," he said, when he had an opportunity to speak to him. "I never saw him in a better humor. She's pleased him somehow. Women don't touch him usually."