“I forgot to tell you in my last letter; it's just out, and we don't like it very well,” observed Fanny, who would have preferred to be engaged first herself.
“It's a very nice thing, and I am perfectly satisfied,” announced Mrs. Shaw, rousing from a slight doze.
“Polly looks as if she did n't believe it. Have n't I the appearance of 'the happiest man alive'?” asked Tom, wondering if it could be pity which he saw in the steady eyes fixed on him.
“No, I don't think you have,” she said, slowly.
“How the deuce should a man look, then?” cried Tom, rather nettled at her sober reception of the grand news.
“As if he had learned to care for some one a great deal more than for himself,” answered Polly, with sudden color in her cheeks, and a sudden softening of the voice, as her eyes turned away from Tom, who was the picture of a complacent dandy, from the topmost curl of his auburn head to the tips of his aristocratic boots.
“Tommy's quenched; I agree with you, Polly; I never liked Trix, and I hope it's only a boy-and-girl fancy, that will soon die a natural death,” said Mr. Shaw, who seemed to find it difficult to help falling into a brown study, in spite of the lively chatter going on about him.
Shaw, Jr., being highly incensed at the disrespectful manner in which his engagement was treated, tried to assume a superb air of indifference, and finding that a decided failure, was about to stroll out of the room with a comprehensive nod, when his mother called after him: “Where are you going, dear?”
“To see Trix, of course. Good-by, Polly,” and Mr. Thomas departed, hoping that by the skillful change of tone, from ardent impatience to condescending coolness, he had impressed one hearer at least with the fact that he regarded Trix as the star of his existence, and Polly as a presuming little chit.
If he could have heard her laugh, and Fanny's remarks, his wrath would have boiled over; fortunately he was spared the trial, and went away hoping that the coquetries of his Trix would make him forget Polly's look when she answered his question.