“There is plenty to do. I have a dozen servants to manage that ran wild while we were away—and the house to keep, and to look after the garden—and I ride or drive every day—and keep up my piano playing—and read a little. What do you do?”
“Nothing,” answered Pembroke, boldly.
Olivia did not say a word. She threw him one brief glance though, from her dark eyes that conveyed a volume.
“I have a license to practice law,” he continued, coolly. “I’ve had it for five years—got it just before the State went out, when I went out too. Four years’ soldiering isn’t a good preparation for the law.”
“Ah!” said Olivia.
“I have enough left, I daresay, to keep me without work,” he added.
If he had studied how to make himself contemptible in Olivia’s eyes, he could not have done so more completely. She had acquired perfect self-possession of manner, but her mobile face was as yet undisciplined. When to this last remark she said in her sweetest manner, “Won’t you let Petrarch fill your glass?” it was equivalent to saying, “You are the most worthless and contemptible creature on this planet.” Just then the Colonel’s cheery voice resounded from the foot of the table.
“Pembroke, when I drove through the Court House to-day, it made me feel like a young man again, to see your father’s old tin sign hanging out of the old office, ‘French Pembroke, Attorney at Law.’ It has been a good many years since that sign was first put up. Egad, your father and I have had some good times in that office, in the old, old days. He always kept a first-class brand of liquors. His style of serving it wasn’t very imposing, but it didn’t hurt the liquor. I’ve drank cognac fit for a king in that office, and drank it out of a shaving mug borrowed from the barber next door—ha! ha!”
A change like magic swept over Olivia’s face. It indicated great relief that Pembroke was not an idle scamp after all. She tried to look sternly and reproachfully at him, but a smile lurked in her eyes.
“You are not as lazy as I thought you, but twice as deceitful,” she said.