As usual, Ludlow made himself manifest. His sneer in a shrill staccato was apparently directed against Doctor Stephen Aire, a new arrival. Him I had not yet met, the table being already seated when I came down from revising my toilet in my lofty bed-chamber.
“—and the wrigglings and windings of the new psychology, the new psychology, forsooth!”
A diatribe by Lord Ludlow I already considered to be in the nature of a treat, and I leaned forward to see how the challenge would be received by Doctor Aire, who was seated at the same side of the table as I. All that was visible of him, of course, was head and shoulders, extraordinarily broad and square shoulders in rough purplish tweed, and a shocking small and yellowy-looking head with tight-stretched skin, a balt spot like a tonsure in a ring of sparse grey hair, and short pepper-and-salt moustache. His eyes (I could see, for he sat only two away from me) were small and bright and seemed to be twinkling amusement.
“The new psychology, sir—”
“No, Ludlow,” clicked the doctor, his thin bloodless lips curved sharply upward at the ends, “not the new psychology, of course. Why, Saint Paul knew as much psychology as anyone living to-day!”
At this iteration of his own words of the night before his Lordship stared, swallowed, and collapsed into silence. A small but delighted squeak produced by a morsel of a girl at the other end gave away the secret of pre-arrangement, and a laugh murmured about the table.
Now, I was not the only one who particularly noticed this very young lady, “Lib” (short for Liberty!) Dale. While I took in her appearance, I became almost intuitively aware of another gaze making an angle with mine. Cosgrove was staring at her, so enigmatically that I removed my glance from her to him, just as she turned her blue eyes upon me with a quick little movement of her head. Vastly interested, totally engrossed, seemed Sean Cosgrove just then, but the quality of his interest was untellable. In the judgment of a second, I guessed his to be a look of, almost, aversion; he seemed fascinated, yet scandalized. Then the fleeting expression was gone, and he leaned back, turned to his neighbour.
Now I was aware that another beside myself was intent on Cosgrove!
Pendleton sat in sole occupancy of the head of the board. The ends of the table, however, were broad enough to seat two of our numerous party, and Alberta Pendleton shared the foot with a youth of sturdy appearance. Bob Cullen completed the American group among us. His alert eyes had the queer habit of blinking owlishly at whiles; he possessed also a pug nose, a good, clean-cut mouth, and a jaw meatless and determined. Between the mode of his smooth black hair and that of “Lib” Dale’s there was, as far as I could see, little to tell. He was very shy. His contributions to conversation, such as I had happened to overheard, had been “That’s right,” and “Yes, Ma’am,” addressed with schoolboy gruffness to Alberta Pendleton, who smiled on him with aunt-like approbation. He has attended for a year, I understand, one of the great American universities.
He, then, was staring at Cosgrove, while the Irishman’s regard rested in trouble on the boyish features of “Lib” Dale. The American youth’s face went unwontedly white, and his eyes, now wide open, glared. There was nothing puzzled in his expression, only resentment and a vague awe, as if he knew he confronted a better man than he.