“Lights in all the windows,” said he. “That looks as if they’d all gone to their own rooms; looks like bed-time. I was afraid of it. I suppose there’s nothing to do but go back to the sloop, or find some place to lodge. Too bad!”
He re-crossed the street, and ascended a step or two: truthful though he was, he would have denied to any one but himself that he did it only because Lucia had tripped up those same steps. Slowly he descended and walked away; but he had passed but a house or two, and was looking backward, when a man who had passed him ran up the Tramlay steps. Then Phil saw a flash of light and heard a door close.
“That wasn’t Mr. Tramlay. There aren’t any other men in the family. He must be a visitor. Well, if other men can call at this time of night, I guess I can visit it too.”
Back he went, and, as he was unacquainted with the outer mechanism of door-bells, he rapped sharply upon the door. It opened instantly, and as Phil stepped in he found the hall and stairway, as well as the parlors, quite full of ladies and gentlemen.
“It’s a party,” he said to himself. Then he informed himself, in great haste, that he would postpone his visit, but as he turned to go he found the door was closed, and a small colored boy who stood by it said, “Gen’lmen fust room back,” and pointed up-stairs. Entirely losing his self-possession, and wondering what to do, Phil stood stupidly staring about him, when suddenly he saw Lucia in full evening dress. He hastily dropped his eyes, for he had never before seen a dress of that particular cut.
CHAPTER IV.
THE TRAMLAY RECEPTION.
“Well, who hasn’t come?” asked Edgar Tramlay, as Lucia hurried toward him with a countenance in which despondency and indignation were striving for mastery. Tramlay knew his daughter’s moods, for they were exact duplicates of some he had married a score of years before.
“Oh, if he hadn’t come!—if he hadn’t come!”
The head of the family looked puzzled; then his expression changed to indignation as he asked,—
“Has any one dared to come to my house after drinking?”