His hand found hers, as though by accident, and she let it linger for an instant, before she took her own away. Then, she said:
"Sometimes, Sir Edward, I fancy you are inclined to play at making love to me just to keep your hand in!" and, with a merry laugh, fled.
In the first week of August, Sir Edward Parkington came to Annapolis to stay with Governor Sharpe, preparatory to going with him to Whitehall.
He promptly returned the two hundred pounds, his Excellency had lent him earlier in the season; the card tables had yielded very good pickings from his fellow guests, and no need for any exercise of his particular skill, either, his natural ability, and Dame Fortune, having been ample for success.
The Governor and the Lower House had reached an agreement as to the Supply Bill, at last, and the Assembly was scheduled to be prorogued on the morrow. The town was filled with those who usually attend the last hours of any legislative body:—the officers of the Provincial Government, the Councillors, the Representatives, the hangers on, the spoilsmen and the riff-raff. Otherwise, Annapolis was deserted.
The heated spell was at its height, and the gentility had, long since, sought the cool and quiet of their country estates, along the Eastern and Western Shores. The Governor's house was open, with its usual retinue of servants, but it was alone in its grandeur. The rest showed only a single light at night, and a solitary servant, left to care for the man of the family who was in presence. They, too, would vanish on the morrow, and Annapolis would, so far as the sacred precincts of the quality were concerned, become a dead city, until Autumn touched it again to life.
It was something after ten o'clock, when Sir Edward Parkington, being bored with himself, left the Governor's mansion, and sauntered through the deserted precincts of the town to the Coffee-house, on Church Street.
He could count on finding some of the young bloods there, and some of the old bloods, as well—the legislature could not hold every one, on such a night. Before he came to State House Hill, he saw that the Assembly had risen, and, when he reached the Coffee-house, the noise, from within, told him that he should find plenty of companionship.
In the larger room, were gathered a coterie of the younger men, who greeted him with a shout of welcome.
"Come in, Parkington! come in, and join us!" shouted Mr. Cole. He thundered on the table. "Here, Sparrow, a glas'h for Sir Edward. We are drinking confush'on to those who think differently from us."