“Miss ’Livy, you jes’ let me manage dem black niggers,” was Petrarch’s sensible advice. “Dey doan know nuttin’ ’bout a real swell dinner. I say yistiddy to Cook M’ria, ‘Why doan yer have some orntrees fur dinner outen all dat chicken an’ truck you has lef’ over ev’y day?’ an’ Miss ’Livy, ef you will b’lieve me, dat nigger, she chase me outen de kitchen wid a shovel full o’ live coals. She ain’ got no ’spect for ’ligion. Arter I got out in de yard, I say, ‘You discontemptuous, disreligious ole cantamount, doan’ you know better’n to sass de Lord’s ’n’inted?’” (this being Petrarch’s favorite characterization of himself). “But M’ria ain’ got de sperrit ’scusin’ ’tis de sperrit o’ owdaciousness. Ez fur dat Ike, I done tole him ‘I am de Gord o’ respicution,’ an’ he ’low I ain’t no sech a thing. I gwi’n lick dat yaller nigger fo’ long.”
“You’d better not try it Uncle Petrarch—” (Petrarch was near to sixty, and was therefore by courtesy, Uncle Petrarch). “Ike won’t stand it, and I won’t have it either, I can tell you.”
The Berkeleys went against the county custom, and dined in the evening. Therefore, at seven o’clock precisely, on the evening of the dinner, French Pembroke and his brother entered the quaint old drawing-room at Isleham. Olivia had learned the possibilities of ancient mahogany furniture and family portraits, and the great rambling old house was picturesque enough. A genuine Virginia wood fire roared up the chimney, where most of the heat as well as the flame went. Wax candles, in tall silver candlesticks, were on the mantel, and the piano. Miss Berkeley herself, in a white wool gown, looked a part of the pleasant home-like picture, as she greeted her two guests. French Pembroke had called twice to see them, but neither time had Olivia been at home. This, then, was their first meeting, except the few minutes at the races. He was the same easy, pleasantly cynical Pembroke she had known in Paris. There was another French Pembroke whom she remembered in her childish days as very good natured, when he was not very tyrannical, in the visits she used to pay with her dead and gone mother long ago to Malvern—and this other Pembroke could recite wonderful poetry out of books, and scare little Miles and herself into delicious spasms of terror by the weird stories he would tell. But Miles had changed in every way. He had been in his earlier boyish days the pet and darling of women, but now he slunk away from the pity in their tender eyes. He had once had a mannish little strut and a way of looking out of his bold blue eyes that made a path for him wherever he chose to tread. But now he shambled in, keeping as far out of sight as possible behind the elder brother’s stalwart figure.
Colonel Berkeley shook Miles’s one hand cordially. His armless sleeve was pinned up to his coat front.
“God bless my soul,” the Colonel cried. “Am I getting old? Here’s little Miles Pembroke almost a man.”
“Almost—papa—you mean quite a man. It is a dreadful reflection to me that I am older than Miles,” said Olivia, smiling. Then they sat about the fire, and Olivia, putting her fan down in her lap, looked French Pembroke full in the face and said, “You know, perhaps, that Madame Koller and Mr. Ahlberg dine here to-night?”
“Yes,” answered Pembroke, with all the coolness of conscious innocence—or brazen assurance of careless wickedness, Olivia could not tell which.
“You saw a good deal of them abroad, didn’t you?” was her next question.
“Yes,” again replied Pembroke.
“Olivia, my dear,” said her father, who very much enjoyed this little episode, “you women will never learn that you can’t find anything out by asking questions; and Pembroke, my boy, remember that women never believe you except when you are lying to them. Let him alone, Olivia, and he will tell you the whole story, I’ll warrant.”