"Why, no—honest injun!—any one can learn to understand this classic music. It only requires a sufficient stretch of imagination, and then all is clear as—mud. Now, when Maud is playing Mendelssohn's 'Wedding March,' I can hear the cat squall like a panther when the baby pulls its tail; and she—that is Mrs. 'Sohn—takes an awful tantrum when 'Sohn wants her to get up of a cold morning and make a fire; and the way they shout and gabble—all in Dutch—would scare a krout-barrel," said Rob, with perfect gravity.
"Oh, humbug!" she replied with a shrug, as she flounced away to where Maud stood examining a book of engravings.
"Cliff and Mora are acting like a couple of idiots, Maud," whispered Grace, as she surveyed the elegant and finished picture, "The Carnival in Venice," with a critical glance that reminded one of a wren; but as Maud failed to reply to this personal comment, she continued in an undaunted undertone:—
"I don't pretend to understand flirtations, but if I did, I'd say that Mora Estill was a pronounced coquette. She bears all the ear-marks of a born flirt, and the way she throws herself at the head of young Downels—the sophisticated creature!—is just shameful. But still my fingers itch none the less to pull Cliff's ears; for there he goes, with his lip hanging so low you could step on it—and all on her account, too."
"Well, Grace, let's reserve our sympathy and censure for the future," said Maud, in a tone meant to discourage any further discussion of the subject; and as the supper-bell announced the unfashionable hour of six, and the guests were preparing to follow Mrs. Estill and Major Stork into the long, fresco-paneled dining-room, Grace ceased her comments, and soon forgot all about her friends while leaning on the arm of Hugh Estill and hurrying into the damask-draped and luxury-laden table.
However, she noticed that Clifford and Mrs. Warfield sat next to Mora and young Downels when they were, at length, all seated, and that while the latter couple were silent, the former kept up a semi-animated, constrained run of small talk during the meal; but she soon became so engrossed while listening to Hugh's not over-brilliant wit that all else was devoid of interest.
When the many luxuries had been discussed, and the guests were loitering in the parlor or sauntering out upon the terrace in groups of twos and—well, twos also, I believe—Clifford walked out alone to the fountain, and sat down on a stone seat near the basin, which was brimming with water. Here the broad-leaved lilies floated, with their blossoms of pale rose and cream, distilling an odor of entrancing sweetness for yards around the cool, moss-set brim. As he sat lost in bitter meditations, the twilight began to deepen, the cicadas tuned their shrill pipes, and Venus shone out with unclouded splendor over the tree-tops of the valley below, followed, as she has ever been, by an ardent host of glittering stars and planets. That great midsummer constellation, the Scorpion, seemed stinging the "milky way" with its venomous tail, while the jeweled Sickle sank in the west—an omen that the harvest-days were nearly ended. A shrill katydid, overhead in the branches, heralded the coming frost, while a low ripple of voices mingled with the faint notes of the piano and snatches of song from within the house.
As Clifford sat, trailing a lily through the water, thinking, alas! of the time when he had strolled here with Mora, only two short weeks before, and how trustfully she had told him of "the mystery that seemed haunting the very air of late," he found it hard to realize that another had supplanted him, and that henceforth they were to be as strangers. But slowly it began to dawn upon him that their paths had diverged since that fatal night upon the star-lit terrace, when she so lightly remarked upon their "practicing" and "flirtation," until now he felt they were rapidly and surely becoming totally estranged.
"It is better that I should never, never look upon her fair, proud face again; for when I meet her eyes—ah! what can it mean?—there seems such a look of pleading, mingled with pride and—something that I can never understand—that it totally unmans me, and I can not trust my lips to speak a word for fear of betraying the secret of my love. No; she will find that the Warlow pride will be a match for her own; for I would rather tear my heart out and fling it at her feet, than have her spurn my love, as only a proud creature like her can.
"To know that she looks upon me as a fortune hunter, and scans me with those haughty—oh, lovely—violet eyes, classing me as 'poor and proud,' but far beneath her caste,—oh, Heaven! it is more than I can or will bear!" mentally exclaimed fiery young Warlow with a flash of hot wrath,—which is about the best remedy known for a sore heart, I really believe.