Tolerant, not from any vagueness of judgment; easy to get on with, but not to drive or to deceive, he looked strikingly the good fellow, yet kept you in respect. An air of capability, a consciousness of definite achievements, went coupled in him with the humor that would prevent bumptiousness however great the matter for pride. A quiet carelessness of other people’s opinions formed part of his 319effect of poise; the opinions of dukes would have affected him as little as those of rag-pickers, unless they recommended themselves to that judicial spot in his brain at which he tried them. He was level-headed, unsentimental, but kind, of a kindness that like good-humor seemed almost physical, and made him stop to stroke the kitchen cat as well as see to it that the negress’s baby had the right milk for its orphaned stomach.
He looked at Aurora with smiling scrutiny, and facially expressed a vast appreciation. She looked back at him with eyes of laughing tenderness. Avoiding to speak directly to her the compliments rising in his mind, he turned to Estelle.
“Hasn’t she blossomed out!”
“Isn’t she wonderful?” chimed in that friend, enthusiastically.
Aurora, with a comedy of pride, threw up her chin, lifted her arms, and turned as if on a pivot, to show herself off in her elegance. She had on the wine-colored street-dress bordered with black fox; over its white satin waistcoat embroidered with gold hung in a splendid loop her pink corals. The restraining Paris corset gave to her luxuriant form a charming modish correctness of line.
“Oh, Tom,”–she sank happily on the sofa beside him,–“we’re having the time of our lives! Just wait till you see me in company, and hear me put on my good English, when, instead of calling things lovely or horrid, I call them amusing or beastly or impossible. But your turn first. Give us the Denver news.”
After dinner that evening, in the midst of Italo’s brilliant performance, a caller came,–a thin, oldish, English-speaking 320lady whose black dress made no pretense of following the fashion.
Aurora had met her at Mrs. Satterlee’s during a meeting appointed to raise funds for the Protestant orphanage. When this philanthropist, after a little talk of other things, mentioned the relict of a mason, left with five young children, Estelle and Dr. Bewick took it as a hint to withdraw beyond earshot. The two ladies were left talking in undertones; after a minute they found themselves alone in the room.
Estelle preceded Dr. Bewick across the hall to the dining-room, deserted and orderly, where the drop-light rained its direct brightness only on the rich and variegated tapestry cover of the table beneath it. From the sideboard–whence the marble fruit had for some time been missing–she brought a bottle of aërated water and a glass to set before him; she found him an ash-tray, and seated herself beside the table near him in such a way as to get, through the parted half-doors, a glimpse of the visitor when she should leave.