“Tut, tut, my dear sir,” said Marge, “woman is divine, and it isn’t good form to criticise divinity. Miss Tramlay is remarkably pretty: I trust we agree at least upon that safe ground?”
“Pretty?” echoed Phil, before Marge had ceased speaking. “She is radiant,—angelic!”
Again Mr. Marge enshrouded his face with smoke, after which he did not continue the conversation, except to remark, “Yes.” Phil studied the color-tone of the room, and wondered why paper like that on the wall had not been offered for sale by the store-keeper at Haynton; then he resolved he would buy and take home to his mother a chair just like that in which he was sitting, for it was so comfortable that he felt as if he could fall asleep in it. Indeed, he was already so oblivious to Marge and other human presence that he was startled when a gentle rustle ushered in Lucia, who exclaimed,—
“Phil, you must come back to the parlor. Half a dozen girls are real envious because they haven’t seen you at all, and half a dozen others want to see more of you. Father has been sounding your praises until they’re sure the Admirable Crichton has come to life again.”
Phil attempted to rise,—an awkward operation to a man previously unacquainted with Turkish chairs. Lucia laughed, and offered him assistance: it was only a little hand, but he took it, and as he looked his thanks he saw Lucia’s face as he had sometimes known it of old,—entirely alert and merry. At the same time a load fell from his mind, a load which he had been vaguely trying to attribute to the lateness of the hour, the strangeness of his surroundings,—anything but the manner in which the girl had first greeted him. As she took his arm and hurried him out of the library he felt so fully himself that he forgot even that he was not attired like the gentlemen around him.
Mr. Marge, who had risen when Lucia entered the library, followed the couple with his eyes; then, when alone, he frowned slightly, bit his lip, dropped the end of his cigarette, paced to and fro several times, leaned on the mantel, and muttered,—
“ ‘Phil’!”
Then he lighted another cigarette, and veiled his face in smoke for several minutes.
CHAPTER V.
NOT SO DREADFUL AFTER ALL.
Regular hours being among the requirements of the head of the Tramlay household, Lucia appeared at the breakfast-table, the morning after the reception, as the clock struck eight. Her father, dressed for business, and her mother, in négligée attire and expression, were discussing the unbidden guest of the evening before.