The next morning she admired her charge under a new view of her. Dolly appeared at breakfast with a calm, measured manner, which, if it were in part the effect of great pressure upon her spirits, had at the same time the grace of a very finished breeding. Mrs. Jersey looked and admired, and wondered too. How had the little American got this air? She could not put it on herself; but she had seen her mistresses in the great world wear it; a certain unconscious, disengaged dignity which sat marvellously well upon the gracious softness and young beauty of this little girl.
The breakfast was rather silent. The drive, which they entered upon immediately after, was almost wholly so. Mrs. Jersey, true to her promise, let her own affairs wait, and accompanied her young friend. Dolly had changed her plan, and went now first to Mr. Copley's office in the city. It was the hour when he should be there, and to go to his lodging would have taken them out of the way. So they drove the long miles from Grosvenor Square to the American Consul's office. Dolly's mood was eager and hopeful now; yet with too much pressure to allow of her talking.
The cab stopped opposite the entrance of a narrow covered way between two walls of houses. Following this narrow passage, Mrs. Jersey and Dolly emerged into a little court, very small, on one side of which two or three steps led to the American Consul's offices. The first one they entered was full of people, waiting to see the Consul or parleyeing with one or another of the clerks. Dolly left Mrs. Jersey there to wait for her, and herself went on into the inner room, her father's special private office. In those days the office of American Consul was of far more importance and dignity than to-day; and this room was a tolerably comfortable one and respectably furnished.
Here, however, her father was not; and it immediately struck Dolly that he had not been there very lately. How she gathered this impression is less easy to tell, for she could hardly be said to see distinctly any one of the characters in which the fact was written. She did not know that dust lay thick on his writing-table, and that even the papers piled there were brown with it; she did not know that the windows were fastened down this warm day, nor that an arm-chair which usually stood there for the accommodation of visitors was gone, having been slipped into the outer office by an ease-loving clerk. It was a general air of forsakenness, visible in these and in yet slighter signs, which struck Dolly's sense. She stood a moment, bewildered, hoping against sense, as it were; then turned about. As she turned she was met by a young man who had followed her in from the outer office. Dolly faced him.
"Where is Mr. Copley?"
"He ain't here." The Yankee accents of home were unmistakeable.
"I see he is not here; but where is he?"
"Couldn't say, reelly. 'Spect he's to his place. We don't ginerally expect ladies at this time o' day, or I guess he'd ha' ben on hand." The clerk grinned at Dolly's beauty, the like of which to be sure was not often seen anywhere at that, or any other, time of day.
"When was Mr. Copley here, sir?"
"Couldn't say. 'Tain't very long, nother. Was you wantin' to see him on an a'pintment?"