“C-c-c-cut the cards,” yelled Charley.
“A suit,” continued the implacable Billy, “that you were prosecuting—”
“Wished to establish, you mean.”
“Yes, a suit—”
“Uncle Tom,” cried Charley, almost upsetting the table, “I give it up. ’Twas an idiotic play I made.”
Billy threw back his head so that it rested on Charley’s shoulder. “When,” asked he, under cover of the general laughter,—“when are you going to cut your finger again?”
Just then Mr. Whacker appeared at the window and gave three brisk raps, and the girls went scampering out on the piazza, followed by the gentlemen, the Don bringing up the rear. There was a general waving of handkerchiefs, and the telescope passed from hand to hand.
“There they all are,” cried Alice, cheerily, peering through the glass with one eye and smiling brightly with the other: “Lucy and Mrs. Poythress on the back seat, her young brother and Mr. Poythress in front. They see us now,—there go the handkerchiefs! Ah, just look at little Laura, sitting in Lucy’s lap and waving for dear life! Here, Mary, take a look. How distinctly you see them!”
“Yes,” said Mary; but with the eye which seemed to be gazing through the telescope she saw nothing, while with the other she took in every motion of the Don. He was striding with irregular steps up and down the piazza, now mechanically waving his handkerchief, now thrusting it back into his pocket; at one time, as he stopped, his eyes fixed upon the floor; at another rolling with a kind of glare as he started suddenly forward. He strode past her, and his arm grazed her shoulder. She shivered. Had her companions observed it? She gave a quick glance, and was reassured. They were all waving in frantic, girlish glee, in response to the vigorous demonstrations across the River. The rainbow knew not of the neighboring thunder-cloud.
“What a terrible love,” she mused. “But, oh, to have inspired it!” He had not yet had the glass in his hand; she would offer it to him. Woman alone is capable of such self-sacrifice. She turned towards him as he was passing again, and, though a glance at his dark face almost unnerved her, she stood in his path and offered him the glass. A surprise was in store for her. Brought to himself, he looked startled at first, as though suddenly realizing who stood before him; and then, sudden as a flash of light, there came into his eyes a look so gentle and tender as to set her heart violently beating. Such a look, she felt, would have been a declaration of love in any other man,—but in an enigma?