“Let me make you acquainted with some of the company,” said the host, drawing Phil away. “Don’t feel uncomfortable; I’ll explain that you just dropped in from out of town, so you couldn’t be expected to be in evening dress.”
Phil began to recover from his embarrassment, thanks to his host’s heartiness, but also to the fact that the strain had been too severe to last long. He slowly raised his eyes and looked about him, assisted somewhat by curiosity as to what “evening dress” meant. He soon saw that all the gentlemen wore black clothes and white ties, and that the skirts of the coats retired rapidly. He had seen such a coat before,—seen it often at Haynton, on Ex-Judge Dickman, who had served two terms in the Legislature and barely escaped going to Congress. The only difference between them was that the judge’s swallow-tail coat was blue and had brass buttons,—not a great difference, if one considered the distance of New York and Haynton.
“Upon my word,” exclaimed Tramlay, suddenly, “I don’t believe you’ve met Lucia yet. Here she is—daughter?”
Lucia was floating by,—a vision of tulle, ivory, peachblow, and amber; she leaned on the arm of a young man, into whose face she was looking intently, probably as an excuse for not looking at the unwelcome visitor. Her father’s voice, however, she had always instinctively obeyed; so she stopped, pouted, and looked defiantly at Phil, who again dropped his eyes, a low bow giving him a pretext.
“Daughter,” said Tramlay, “here’s our old friend Phil, from Haynton. Now, don’t spend the whole evening talking over old times with him, but introduce him to a lot of pretty girls: you know them better than I. Phil, you can explain to them how you struck a full-dress reception just after landing from a cruise; ’twill amuse them more, I’ll warrant, than any story any showy young fellow can tell them this evening. It isn’t every young man who can have a good thing to tell against himself the first time he meets a new set.”
During the delivery of this long speech Lucia eyed Phil with boldness and disfavor, but in obedience to her father she took Phil’s arm,—an act that so quickly improved the young man’s opinion of himself that he instantly felt at ease and got command of such natural graces as he possessed; he was even enabled to look down at the golden head by his shoulder and make some speeches bright enough to cheer Lucia’s face.
“It mayn’t be so entirely dreadful, after all,” thought the girl; “I can introduce him to friends to whom I could afterward explain,—friends who are too good-hearted to make spiteful remarks afterward. Besides, I can blame father for it: all girls have fathers whose ways are queer in one way or another.”
While acting upon this plan, and finding, to her great relief, that Phil could talk courteous nothings to new acquaintances, she suddenly found herself face to face with a man of uncertain age but faultless dress and manner, who said,—
“Mayn’t I be favored with an introduction? Your friend is being so heartily praised by your father that I am quite anxious to know him.”
“Mr. Marge, Mr. Hayn,” said Lucia. Phil’s proffered hand was taken by what seemed to be a bit of languid machinery, although encircled at one end by a cuff and coat-sleeve and decorated with a seal-ring. Phil scanned with interest the face before him, for he had often heard Mr. Marge mentioned when the Tramlay family were at Haynton. His look was returned by one that might have been a stare had it possessed a single indication of interest, surprise, or curiosity. Mr. Marge had met young men before; he had been seeing new faces for twenty-five years, and one more or less could not rouse him from the composure which he had been acquiring during all that time.