Breathed in an idle hour;
Between two laughs that word was said,
Forgotten just as fled,
And yet that word had power!’”
Immediately afterward she announced her fixed and inalterable decision of going to bed; and Nina, who never wished to retire, and having once retired rarely wished to get up, was obliged to leave her.
The next morning the introductions took place. Captain Fordyce appeared at the breakfast-table, and, some time after Miss Marsden and Nina had seated themselves side by side next him, he leaned over and said to the former in a blunt whisper, “That man wishes an introduction: have you any objection?”
As “that man” meant Captain Eversleigh, who was listening unobtrusively, Miss Marsden murmured an assent; and the introduction was made. Captain Eversleigh then asked Captain Fordyce’s permission to seat his friend, Mr. Maybury, in the place left vacant by Mr. Delessert, who was taking his meal no one knew where.
Nina, therefore, had her wish fulfilled. Mr. Maybury was charmed to pour out his store of semi-bashful, semi-bravado remarks at her feet, and she shyly accepted his homage, and allowed her husband to devote himself to his plate.
Breakfast over, they all separated, but, to Nina’s amusement, Miss Marsden showed a steady inclination to gravitate toward the music-room; and before the morning was half over, she was striking the opening chords of one of Chopin’s waltzes.
Her execution was brilliant enough to be remarkable in one not a professional musician; and Nina alternately listened to her in pleased surprise, and gazed impatiently at the open door of the room.