“One of our American folk songs,” and the grey eyes of the speaker were bright with tears; “in all my life I have never heard it played so exquisitely.”
“For a confirmed blue stocking, the Marquise understands remarkably well how to make her little compliments,” said the Countess Helene.
Mrs. McVeigh arose, and with a slight bow to the dowager, passed into the alcove. At the last bar of the song a shadow fell across the keys, and the musician saw their American visitor beside her.
“I should love to have you see the country whose music you interpret so well,” she said impulsively; “I should like to be with you when you do see it.”
“You are kind, and I trust you may be,” replied the Marquise, with a pretty nod that was a bow in miniature. She was rising from the piano, when Mrs. McVeigh stopped her.
“Pray don’t! It is a treat to hear you. I only wanted to ask you to take my invitation seriously and come some time to our South Carolina home; I should like to be one of your friends.”
“It would give me genuine pleasure,” was the frank reply. “You know I confessed that my sympathies were there ahead of me.” The smile accompanying the words was so adorable that Mrs. McVeigh bent to kiss her.
The Marquise offered her cheek with a graciousness that was a caress in itself, and thus their friendship commenced.
After the dowager and her daughter-in-law were again alone, and with an assurance that even the privileged Dumaresque would not break in on their evening, the elder 26 lady asked, abruptly, a question over which she had been puzzling.
“Child, what possessed you to tell to a Southern woman of the States that story reflecting on the most vital of their economic institutions? Had you forgotten their prejudices? I was in dread that you might offend her, and I am sure Helene Biron was quite as nervous.”