“I’ve never been to a prayer-meeting. What’s it like? What happens?”
“It’s just beautiful, my dearie; and the gentry go too. Mrs. Braid, of Elgo House, she always goes.”
Mary made a little face. “She called upon me yesterday. I didn’t find her very exciting. I’ve got to dine there to-night, so I suppose I must dress. You might send Madeleine to do my hair. Dear nursey, I’d far rather stay with you than go to Elgo House.”
III
“ALL SECRET SHADOWS AND MYSTIC SIGHTS”
Dinner parties at Elgo House were not, as a rule, exciting. The conversation generally vibrated between the harvest prospects and the game prospects, with somewhat numerous flashes of silence, during which each guest madly racked his brain for a fresh topic of conversation, only to fall back finally upon the weather.
Andrew Methven did not expect to enjoy himself much on that particular evening. His presence at Elgo House was something of an anomaly, for the family were “established” by conviction, yet Mrs. Braid attended the Free Kirk because she liked Andrew’s sermons.
He felt rather as though he were poaching on his neighbor’s preserves when he went there. He liked his brother cleric (as he liked most people), who, if old and somewhat dull, was kindly and human. So long as his evening pipe and toddy were forthcoming with regularity the “established” minister recked little if he preached to empty benches. Andrew Methven felt the blood rush to his face as on entering the Braids’ drawing-room he heard that voice which had been ringing in his ears ever since his parting with Mary that afternoon.
Daylight lasts long in the North Country, and there were no candles needed at Elgo House for dinner. Mary sat opposite the minister, and had he been given to cursing he would have cursed the tall epergne of fruit that hid her from his sight, especially as the majority of her remarks were addressed to him.
The only other guests were an elderly colonel and his wife, who were staying at the hotel. The colonel, whenever he looked at or spoke to Mary, seemed by his very atmosphere to ejaculate “Monstrous fine woman,” and Andrew felt an insane desire to choke him there and then in his own high white collar.
Dinner over, they all strolled into the garden, and then that happened which made an epoch in Andrew Methven’s life.