“Excuse me, but can you tell me where Eugenia is?”
“In her dressing-room, I think,” said Margaret, in a voice that, in spite of her, was husky.
“I want to speak to her,” he said, and, without another word or look, he walked away.
Poor Margaret! Her heart was sore and troubled at the sad words of Charley Somers’ note. In her own state of happiness and hope, they struck her as a thousand times more touching. She felt restless and uneasy, and she would have given much for some slight sign of protecting care and tenderness from Louis. She was ready to relinquish everything for him. She knew that he could make up to her for the loss of all else; but although he must have seen that she was troubled, he could bear to leave her with that air of cold composure! A dreadful doubt and uncertainty seized upon her, and she went to her room feeling lonely and dispirited.
There was to be a large ball that night, and it was not until Margaret came down to dinner, and observed that Mr. Gaston’s place was vacant, that she learned from Cousin Eugenia that he had excused himself from both dinner and the ball. She did not ask for any explanation, and Mrs. Gaston only said that she supposed he had work to finish. No one took any special heed of his absence, but Margaret remembered that it was her last dinner with them, and felt hurt that he should have absented himself; the ball was suddenly bereft of all its delight. She knew there was something wrong, and her heart sank at the thought that there might be no opportunity for explanation between them. But then she remembered the unfinished sentence that General Gaston’s entrance had interrupted the night before, and she felt sure that all must come right in the end.
Animated by this strong conviction, and remembering that she would not leave until late in the afternoon of the next day, she dressed for the ball in a beautiful toilet of Cousin Eugenia’s contriving, composed of white silk and swan’s-down, resolved to throw off these fancied doubts and misgivings as far as possible. In spite of all, however—though Cousin Eugenia went into ecstacies over her appearance, and she had more suitors for her notice than she could have remembered afterward—the evening was long and wearisome to her, and she was glad when Cousin Eugenia came to carry her off rather early, in anticipation of the fatigues of the next day.
When they reached home there was a bright light in the library, and Louis was sitting at the table writing.
“Is that you, Louis?” said Mrs. Gaston, calling to him from the hall: “Margaret must give you an account of the ball, for I am too utterly worn out. Go, Margaret—and lest you should not mention it, I’ll preface your account by saying that Miss Trevennon was, by all odds, the beauty and belle of the occasion.”
With these words she vanished up the staircase, whither her husband had preceded her.
Half glad and half timid, Margaret advanced toward the centre of the room, and when Louis stood up to receive her, she could not help observing how careworn and grave he looked. There was a troubled expression in his face that touched her very much. Something had happened since last night. She felt more than ever sure of it; and it was something that had stirred him deeply.