As she ceased speaking, the readiness with which Martha took advantage of the pause to move toward the dining-room suddenly made her aware that dinner must have been announced,—how long ago she could not tell,—and that her garrulous speech and gesticulation had prevented her from hearing it. Her back was toward the door; but how excited she must have been, and appeared, not to have been aware of the announcement! Her face flushed, and she bit her lip with vexation.
Martha looked at her brother, supposing that he would offer his arm to their guest. Instead of doing so, however, he merely stood aside and waited for the two ladies to go into the dining-room before him. In doing this, Sonia passed very near him; and with a feeling of defiance in her breast she looked straight at him.
He did not meet her gaze, however; for his own eyes were gravely lowered and hid behind a pair of heavy lids, the curves and lashes of which were startlingly familiar to her.
In the lull which the formalities of the moment occasioned, it was painfully borne in on Sonia that she had been too talkative. Her recent rapid speech smote annoyingly on her ears; and when she recalled the fact that she had done all the talking, and must have made an appearance of almost vulgar chattiness, she felt humiliated and indignant. Was she exposing her inward excitement to this quiet man, who was now giving some low-toned instructions to the butler with a self-possession which she suddenly envied? Feeling hurt and angry, she fell into utter silence.
A constraint had fallen upon the party which was even more marked than that which
“SONIA PASSED VERY NEAR HIM.”
usually characterizes the first moments at a formal table. Sonia felt that she would bite her tongue in two before she would speak again, and Martha had a helpless sense that things were somehow going wrong. It was Harold who broke the silence.
“Martha,” he said, “the princess will say, perhaps, what wine she prefers.”