The evening had been delightful, Gay thought; for a while they had all played a hilarious card game for the prize David offered, the prize being a large conch shell which David himself had selected upon a hilarious and candlelighted search through the freezing wilderness of some of the downstairs rooms. And then they had stood talking about the fire, and finally had grouped themselves about it; the girls packed into chairs in twos, the men on the floor, for five more minutes—and five more!—of pleasant, weary, desultory conversation. David had held his favourite position, during this talk, standing, with one arm on the mantel and his charming smile turned to the room, and Gabrielle noticed, or thought she did, that he rarely moved his eyes from Sylvia’s face.
But when he did, it was almost always to give her, Gay, a specially kind look; every moment—she could not help it!—made him seem more wonderful, and every one of his rare words deepened the mysterious tie that drew her, strangely confused, strangely happy, and strangely sad, nearer and nearer to him.
There was another portrait of Roger here, this one painted in about his fortieth year; handsomer than ever, still smiling, a book open before him on a table, a beautiful ringed hand dropped on a collie’s lovely feathered ruff.
“That was your father, Mr. Fleming?” Gwen Montallen had asked, looking up at Roger’s likeness.
“Stepfather. My father died before I was born,” David said, with his ready, attentive interest. “My mother married Mr. Fleming when I was only a baby.”
“And where does Gabrielle come in?” asked Gwen, who had taken a fancy to the younger girl and was showing it in the kindly modern fashion.
“Well, let’s see. Gay’s mother was Aunt Flora’s sister,” David elucidated. “They were Flemings, too. It’s complicated,” admitted David, smilingly. “To get us Flemings straightened out you really have to go back thirty years, to the time I was a baby. My mother was a young widow then, who had married a David Fleming, who was a sort of cousin of Uncle Roger. He doesn’t come into the story at all——”
“And that’s Uncle Roger?” Laura Montallen asked, looking up at the picture.
“That’s Uncle Roger,” David nodded. “I was only a baby when my mother married him, and he was the only father I remember. A year after she married him, my mother had another boy baby, so there were two of us growing up here together.”
“Ah, you’ve a half-brother?” Laura asked.