Margaret rose abruptly from her knees and began to laugh, herself again, gay, debonair, indifferent. “What a fool I can be to entertain you,” she said, her delicate face bright as a child’s.
People gathered about her at once; she was congratulated, praised, but in the corners others disapproved and thought her a little mad. Mrs. Osborne glanced meaningly at her nearest friend and tapped her forehead, and Mrs. Wingfield laughed furiously.
“What a delightful side-show!” she said; “they say White will lose his place—no wonder!”
The throng had closed up again, the gay murmur of talk rose; the musicians were just beginning to play a waltz and the ballroom was filling with dancers.
Margaret, laughing and talking gayly, stood in the door. Fox, looking across at her, experienced a feeling of deep amazement. What an actress a woman can be! It seemed to him that he had dreamed that scene in White’s house, that it was impossible, untrue, a phantasm of his troubled brain. Then, as he watched her, pondering on a woman’s unfathomable moods, he saw a sudden gray whiteness spread over her face like a veil, her eyelids quivered, her lips parted and she swayed.
In an instant he had reached her and caught her as she fell. Judge Temple helped him hush the stir it made, and he carried her quietly and swiftly down stairs to a reception room below where he could get help at once.
Half an hour later Judge Temple took Rose home.
“What was it, father?” she asked, as they got into the carriage; “I didn’t see it and I just heard that Margaret fainted. Mrs. O’Neal kept us all dancing, she didn’t want it known.”
The judge looked thoughtfully out of the window. He was not thinking of Margaret. “She is better now, they got her home in a little while. I believe White did his best in spite of that scene,” he said; “she has heart disease; the doctor intimated to me that she might go just like that if she keeps this up—but people live a long time with Margaret’s kind of heart trouble; I knew one man who had it for twenty years and finally died of stale cucumbers. A beautiful creature, a very beautiful creature, I’ll admit it!”