Nina’s head was swimming, yet outwardly she was an iceberg. She wondered whether her husband was admiring her. Did he see how quickly and how completely she had acquired the reserved, distinguished air of the Englishwomen about her? How little she spoke, and in what a low, sweet voice. How mincingly she ate, and with what tiny, tiny mouthfuls; and at dessert she would show him that she could quite well cut an apple with a knife and fork, instead of gnawing it with her pearly teeth.
To her chagrin, he was not devouring her with his eyes. Something had happened. Something had come between them since they parted. He was not unkind nor unloving, he was simply absent-minded; and he was fighting against it with all his might; and she keenly watched him as he strove to throw off his burden of thought, whatever it was, and devote himself to the young lady that he had taken in to dinner.
She was an English girl, a neighbour of the Forrests, and Nina had had some previous acquaintance with her.
“’Steban calls me a doll,” she indignantly reflected; “the doll is beside him. I know more in ten minutes than that girl does in a year; and she is ten months older than I am. I guess she must have been brought up on pap. He seems to like to hear her talk. He is quite thawing. Yes, indeed, I admire the English climate immensely,” and she turned to the barrister who was addressing her. “It keeps one so interested. You never know what is going to happen. It is like the servant question in America. One discusses it all the time.”
There were no apples for dessert, and by the time the other fruit provided had reached the table, Nina was in a high state of irritation. She had an additional cause to bring it on; for, coupled with her husband’s neglect, was his strange indifference to an insult that was being offered him.
She, too, had noticed that his coat was not of the latest cut. Then he was neither a professional man nor a rich man; and the men surrounding them were either the one or the other, or both, or of aristocratic connection like Mr. Gravesham. With considerable keenness, and great personal displeasure, she had been ferreting into the question of class distinctions, hitherto an unknown subject to her. She hated the system. One person was as good as another in her estimation; and this talk of law, medicine, the army, and the church, as being the only walks in life for gentlemen, made her sick. Certainly these cold-hearted patricians about the table regarded her husband as lower in rank than themselves. They also had a well-bred way of observing her that she did not like. And her husband did not resent his supposed inferiority. It made her blood boil that he should be so meek. She wished that he would dash his napkin on the table, and rush from the house. And now some one was actually calling him by his last name. This was too much for flesh and blood to bear, and her bright eyes and sharp ears immediately went to locate the clear-spoken and oft-recurring “Fordyce!”
It was that odious son of an earl. He had engaged her husband in a discussion of some points connected with yachting. Well, she would give him a lesson; and she immediately lost her superb manner and became lively and animated.
Her neighbours regarded her with indulgence. She was an American girl, far more variable and vivacious than an English one. Far more entertaining, the young barrister confided to his inmost soul. If this dainty, laughing creature were not married, he himself might be tempted to try his luck. Might he—he would do nothing precipitately. But hold—what was the dainty creature saying?
She was addressing the Honourable Arthur Gravesham, actually addressing him across the table in a most familiar and disrespectful manner; and he held his breath to hear.
Nina’s exasperation had reached its last stage. She did not know that Mr. Gravesham had a fixed habit of mentioning the names of persons with whom he conversed; and that his satisfaction at finding her husband’s views with regard to the size and build of yachts entirely coincided with his own was exhibiting itself in a more and more frequent use of his name.