When the guests were taking leave, they asked if Mrs. Gaston and Margaret would not go with them to an Art Exhibition in the evening. The proposal came, in a subdued and deprecating sort of way, from Mrs. Reardon, who was still young and pretty enough to be somewhat eager for pleasure, and although Mrs. Gaston declined it for herself, on the score of indisposition, she encouraged Margaret to go, and the latter very willingly agreed to do so.
She went accordingly, and was pretty well entertained with what she saw, recognizing some acquaintances, among whom was young Mr. Leary, who had been sufficiently persevering to call again, with better success next time, and who had always been especially polite to Margaret on meeting her in society. Shortly before leaving, an acquaintance of General Reardon’s came up, to whom Margaret was presented. He was a Major King, a Southern man, as Margaret somehow divined at a glance, and a resident of Washington, as it soon appeared. Before the party separated, he inquired where Miss Trevennon was staying, and asked her permission to call upon her. Margaret yielded the permission, of course, but with a strange feeling of reluctance; she saw that, though a familiar type of Southern man, he was not a favorable one. There was a sort of aggressive self-confidence in his bearing, which was unpleasant enough to her, but which she knew would be positively offensive to the prejudiced minds of the Gastons. He belonged to a class she knew well—men whose range of vision had been limited, but who were possessed of a feeling of superiority to others in general, and an absolute conviction of superiority to the best Yankee that ever lived. It was an attitude of mind that had always irritated her, but she had never felt the force of it with such indignation as now, when she was being hourly impressed with the worth and superior qualities of these people whom her Southern compatriots regarded with such scorn. If Major King should come to call, however, she could feel confident that he would not betray the presence of this vindictive feeling, for, despite her disapproval of his tone and manner in general, she felt that she could count upon his possessing a spirit of courtesy, a hidden germ of which she had rarely found wanting in a Southern man’s breast.
Margaret mentioned, at breakfast next morning, the fact of her having met Major King, and inquired of her friends if they knew him. The two gentlemen were silent, and Mrs. Gaston replied by a simple negative. She had intended to mention the fact that he had proposed to call upon her, but some instinct prevented her doing so. Very probably he would not come; and, besides, she had an indefinable feeling that there was danger in the topic.
It had become a habit with Margaret to go from the breakfast-table to the bow-window, on the corner of the house, to watch for the coming of the postman, and recently Mr. Gaston had fallen into the way of accompanying her. As the two young people found themselves together in the richly curtained recess, Margaret turned to her companion, with a smile, and said:
“Mr. Leary was there last night. He talked to me for quite half an hour. Ought I to have been elated?”
“Certainly not,” replied the young man, frowning slightly. “Why do you ask such a thing? The idea is quite absurd.”
“Yes, isn’t it?” said Margaret, smiling. “He has so little sense, and he talks so much about himself. Here comes the postman!” She broke off suddenly, running to open the door herself, never divining that it would have been considered more decorous to wait until Thomas came up from the lower regions, and, with his usual deliberation, brought in the letters on his silver tray.