Rena's experiment

by Mary Jane Holmes

If he had dared he would have liked to roar at the ridiculousness of the whole affair, but he was too near the house for that. Waiting a minute, while Reginald wiped his face, and mentally cursing himself for not having given the whole thing up, he said: “Brace up, there’s nothing to fear, I tell you.” And Reginald braced up, and was the first on the piazza and the first to ask if the ladies were in; then he fell back and stopped, while Tom presented Rena to him. She was very pale and there was a wistful look in her eyes which she lifted to Tom as if for help and then turned full upon Mr. Travers, who took her slim, white hand in one almost as white and slim and “horribly cold and clammy” she afterward confided to Tom, when telling him how Mr. Travers scarcely looked at her in his eagerness to get to Irene. That young lady had heard the sound of footsteps and voices on the piazza, but knowing that her attitude was perfect she did not move except to push her loose sleeves a little further up so as to show more of her round, white arm. She was a born actress and would have made a success on the stage with very little training. She was there to win Reginald Travers, and no art of which she was mistress would be left undone to secure the desired result; and she sat waiting for the first move in the game she was playing.

As I entered the room, followed by Mr. Travers, Rena and Tom, the latter of whom had Rena’s hand and was squeezing it rather hard, while she was trying to disengage it, Irene exclaimed:

“O Miss Bennett! is that you?” then, with a pretty gesture of surprise, she rose to her feet and bowed gracefully as I presented her to Mr. Travers. She did not offer him her hand, thinking a certain amount of reserve was befitting her introduction to him.

“I am very pleased to meet you,” she said. “Pray be seated. Oh, not in that dreadful chair; they are all bad enough, but that is the worst of all,” she added, with a laugh, as Reginald dropped into the haircloth rocker, saying:

“Thanks, this will do very well.”

He was glad of any haven and did not mind the poise of the back which threw him forward rather awkwardly. With his whole soul he was looking at Irene, who stood so near him that her organdie skirt just touched his knees and he detected the faint perfume she always had about her. He hated perfumes as a rule, and heliotrope the most of all, but he forgot it in his surprise at the girl’s beauty.

“Tom didn’t tell me more than half the truth,” he thought, as she greeted Tom in a most cousinly manner.

Evidently she had forgotten the angle worm on her neck, a part of which was bare in front. Reginald didn’t like bare necks, but this was so much like a piece of polished marble that he rather admired it, and watched her while she chided Tom for never writing to her, or coming to see her for so long a time. Tom returned her banter playfully, but was looking at Rena, who was sitting where the lamplight fell upon her as it did upon Irene, bringing out her delicate features in profile and showing her beautiful eyes which rested very often, but very furtively, upon the man in the rocker. He was ill at ease, fidgeting a good deal, and acting as if he didn’t know what to do with his hands or his feet, the latter of which were stretched out in front of him so far that it seemed as if he were in danger of slipping to the floor. To add to his discomfiture Mrs. Parks came bustling in from the kitchen, pulling down her sleeves as she came, and exclaiming:

“For the land’s sake, company and only the one lamp! Where’s Charlotte Anne! Let me light the reflector.”

She held a match to the lamp on the wall, and the room was at once flooded with light which showed more perfectly the people in it—Tom Giles, with a comical expression on his handsome face; Mr. Travers, looking as if he wanted to get out of sight by sliding down into the cellar; Rena, with a look I could not understand in her eyes; and Irene, the central figure, wholly self-possessed, but with an air of very becoming shyness about her whenever she looked at Mr. Travers and caught him looking at her. She and Tom did the talking at first, and when he saw nothing was expected of him, Mr. Travers gradually came out of his shell and straightening up looked more like the elegant gentleman I had seen in church. He did not talk much, nor was it necessary, for when Tom, in response to Irene’s question as to what there was to do or see in the neighborhood, replied that he had been there too short a time to know, she must ask Mr. Travers, or better yet, Mrs. Parks, that lady who had seated herself as if the call included her, began volubly to descant upon the different points of interest to be visited. The drives, the pond, the sea, where there were two or three bath-houses, the old mine, where a burglar was once hidden for a week, and at last—Nannie’s Well! I felt sure she would reach it in time and wondered if Mr. Travers had heard of it.