“Southern Imports.”
At the same instant General Gaston entered the room, and just afterward a servant announced dinner.
Mrs. Gaston had mentioned that it was characteristic of her to be a magnanimous victor, and it may have been that fact which prompted her great urbanity to her brother-in-law on the present occasion. She ran her hand through his arm affectionately, as she walked toward the dining-room beside him, and thanked him with great effusiveness for the delicious candy. To all which he answered by the not very relevant response, uttered half under his breath:
“Never mind, madam! I’ll settle with you for this.”
Margaret, of course, was vis-à-vis to Louis Gaston at the table, and while both joined in the general conversation which ensued, she perceived, by her quick glances, that he was a man of not more than medium height, with a straight and well-carried figure and a dark-skinned, intelligent face. He had dark eyes, which were at once keen and thoughtful, and very white teeth under his brown mustache. Although in undoubted possession of these good points, she did not set him down as a handsome man, though his natural advantages were enhanced by the fact that he was dressed with the most scrupulous neatness in every detail, the very cut of his short dark hair, parted straight in the middle, and brushed smoothly down on top of his noticeably fine head, and the well-kept appearance of his rather long finger-nails, giving evidence of the fact that his toilet was performed with punctilious care.
It was something very new, and at the same time very pleasant to Margaret, to observe these little points in a person whose first and strongest impression upon her had been that of genuine manliness. In Bassett, the young men allowed their hair to grow rather long and uneven; and when, for some great occasion, they would pay a visit to the barber, the shorn and cropped appearance they presented afterward was so transforming as to make it necessary for their friends to look twice to be sure of their identity. As to their nails, in many instances these were kept in check by means of certain implements provided by nature for purposes of ruthless demolition, and when this was not the case they were left to work their own destruction, or else hurriedly disposed of in the intervals of vehement stick-whittling. Not a man of them but would have set it down as effeminate to manifest the scrupulous care in dress which was observable in Louis Gaston, and it was upon this very point that Margaret was reflecting when Gaston’s voice recalled her.
“I’m uncommonly glad to get home, Eugenia,” he said, tasting his wine, as the servant was removing his soup-plate. “I think Ames is beginning to find out that this Washington office is a mere subterfuge of mine, and that the real obstacle to my settling down in New York is my fondness for the domestic circle. I really wish Edward could manage to get sent to Governor’s Island. I must confess I should prefer New York as a residence, if I could be accompanied by my household gods and my tribe. Shouldn’t you, Miss Trevennon?”
Margaret had been sitting quite silent for some time, and Gaston, observing this, purposely drew her into the conversation, a thing his sister-in-law would never have done, for the reason that she had observed that her young cousin possessed the not very common charm of listening and looking on with a perfect grace.
“I have never been to New York,” said Margaret, in answer to this direct appeal, “and I have only a limited idea of its advantages as a place of residence, though I don’t doubt they are very great.”
“They are, indeed,” said Louis, observing her with a furtive scrutiny across the graceful mass of bloom and leafage in the épergne. “You will like it immensely.”