“I don’t know about calling it a business,” said William Leroy’s cousin; “I know he’s the busiest. It’s a big old place, you see, the grove they own, and he’s reclaiming it. There’s just one subject he’s discursive on, and that’s the best fertilizer for young orange trees.”
Somehow William Leroy did not shine against this background as his well-intending cousin meant he should. “And they’re poor, Mrs. Leroy and the Captain?” asked Miss Blair.
“Well,” admitted Garrard, “they aren’t rich.”
The girl sat thinking. “I’m going down there,” she said suddenly. “Is there a hotel? There is? Then I’m going to take Molly and go down to see them. There’s something I want to tell Mrs. Leroy and the Captain.”
“As good a place as any,” agreed Dr. Garrard. “I told you at the start Mrs. Garnier must not try a winter here.”
“We’ll go,” declared Alexina, then stopped. Maybe they would not be glad to see her. “But don’t mention the possibility if you should be writing,” she begged; “don’t mention knowing me—please. I—I’d like to discover it all for myself.”
After he had gone she went to the piano, near the window looking out over the warehouse roofs to the river, and, softly fingering some little melody, sat thinking.
There was a tap and Alexina turned on the piano stool as Emily Carringford came in. Somehow Emily, so prettily, daintily charming in her fresh white dress, made Alexina cross. She felt wilted and jaded, and who cared if she did? That her present state was brought about by her own choosing only made her crosser.
What was it in Emily’s manner? Had she grown more beautiful in a night? She dropped into a chair, and, holding her parasol by either end across her knee, looked over at Alexina on the stool, and, looking, laughed. It was a laugh made of embarrassment and complacency, half shy, half bold.
“Your Uncle Austen last night asked me to marry him, Alexina,” she said.