Fairfield, grasping the whole situation, rose at once, without a word. Before leaving the room he stole an involuntary glance at Deborah. She was looking at him, for she herself guessed what she did not know. Her lips were curled into a little smile of amusement that set the man's heart on fire with anger at—Madam Trevor. He said nothing, however, but quietly followed Vincent into the still evening.
An hour later Madam Trevor sat alone in the great hall. Young Charles and the three girls, one by one, had gone to their various rooms, and the mother was waiting alone for the return of her son and her nephew. She was unaccountably anxious over the result of the interview, though indeed there was not one reason which her nephew could, in honor, conjure up, whereby he might refuse to marry Virginia Trevor. It was with the understanding of a some-time marriage that he had come to America with Vincent months before, and because the matter had been so long silently understood, it should not have been hard for him to hear it finally discussed. Thus, many times over, Virginia's mother argued in the candle-light, while she waited. And still, into the midst of her most unanswerable conclusion, would creep a doubt, a suspicion that she would not voice, the name of one whom she tried in vain to put from her mind. It was Deborah. Deborah Travis and Charles Fairfield? Absurd! And yet—madam could see the face of the girl as it had been that evening when Vincent and his cousin left the room. She could see the ironical light in the gray-blue eyes, the scornful curl of the red mouth, the unconscious insolence of the long, natural curl that fell, powderless, down her shoulder to the muslin ruffles at her elbow. Madam Trevor had a measure of justice in her, and she gave Deborah her due, admitting to herself that Virginia, in all her stateliness, with the pearls upon her, would never have tempted man to half the desperation that might be raised within him over this other silent creature, half child, half woman, of madam's own generation.
The clock on the wall ticked ten and went on again. At a quarter after, Trevor and Fairfield came in from the moonlight to the hall. Fairfield was very pale. Vincent's face was calm and unreadable. Sir Charles, seeing his aunt expectant, went over to her, lifted her passive hand to his lips, bowed, and left the room to retire to his own. When he was gone madam turned a puzzled and anxious face towards her son, who stood still, narrowly scrutinizing a portrait on the opposite wall.
"He has refused, then, Vincent?" she asked, finally.
"On the contrary, he will marry Virginia when you please."
"Then he asked too much dowry?"
"He said nothing at all of dowry."
"In Heaven's name, then—what is the matter?"
Vincent sighed, rather wearily. "Nothing is the matter. He does not love Virginia, of course, but—"
"Nonsense, my boy! He would not marry her if she were distasteful to him. Love will come. What girl loves her husband when she marries him? What else did he say, Vincent?"