“I asked you to please excuse me, Mr. Tedcastle.” Miller saw her face harden, as if from the sneer of contempt that passed over it. “I hope it will not be necessary for me to explain my reasons in detail until I have a little more time at my disposal.”
“Oh, certainly not, Miss Bishop,” said the young man, red with anger, as he bowed himself away.
“What's society coming to?” Adele asked Miller, with a nervous little laugh. “Does a lady have to get down on her knees and beg men, little jumping-jacks, like that one, to excuse her, and pet them into a good-humor when she has good reason to change her mind about an engagement? That's a sort of slavery I don't intend to enter.”
“You served him right,” said Miller, who had himself resented the young man's childish impetuosity, and felt like slapping him for his impertinence.
Adele shrugged her fine shoulders. “Let's not waste any more time talking about him,” she said. “I was going to tell you how happy you made them all. When I read mother's description of their return home that night—how she went round looking at each object and touching it, that she might realize it was hers again; and how father sat up till past midnight talking incessantly about it; and all the droll things Uncle Abner said, I cried and laughed by turns. I longed to see you, to tell you how I felt about what you did, and yet, now that I'm with you, all I say seems utterly weak and—inadequate.”
“It seems wonderfully nice to me,” Miller declared. “I don't deserve anything, and yet—well, I like to hear you talk.” He laughed. “Whether I deserve it or not, I could listen to you for a week on a stretch.”
In truth, Rayburn Miller had never in all his varied social career become so suddenly and startlingly interested in any woman. It all seemed like a dream, and a most delicious one—the gay assemblage, the intermittent strains of the music, the touch of the stately creature on his arm, the perfume of her flowers, her hair, her eyes! He suddenly felt fearful of the passage of time, the leaving of his train, the approach of some one to claim her attention. He could not explain the spell she had thrown on him. Was it because she was his friend's sister, and so astoundingly pretty, frank, and sensible, or could it be that—?
His train of thought was broken by the approach of Miss Ida Bishop, Adele's cousin, a rather plain girl, who, with her scrawny neck and scant hair—which rebelled against being made much of—would have appeared to better advantage in a street costume.
“Oh, Adele,” she cried, reproachfully, “what do you mean? Do you know you have mortally offended Mr. Tedcastle? He had the march with you.”
“And I asked him as a favor to excuse me from it,” said Adele, simply. “I had just met Mr. Miller, who is to leave on an early train, and I wanted to talk to him about home. Have you been introduced? My cousin, Miss Bishop, Mr. Rayburn Miller.”