Mrs. Farrell kept her eyes steadily on the gentlemen, and bowed gravely at their names. Then she gathered her skirt into her hand to mount the step, gave them a slight nod, smiled with radiant indifference upon the rest of the company, and disappeared indoors. Mrs. Gilbert made proclamation of the facts to the ladies next her, and casually introduced her guests to two or three who presently left them to her again, as they went to give themselves the last touches before dinner. Mrs. Gilbert then turned to Easton and said, “Mrs. Farrell ran a very fortunate risk. I don’t believe anything less would have brought you here.”
“Oh yes,” answered Easton, “I was on my way. The only difference is that I rode instead of walking.”
“Well, no matter, so you’ve come. I’ve been persuading my brother to stay to dinner, and he says he will, if Easton will. Will you?”
At every word Mrs. Gilbert kept studying Easton’s face, which the young man had a trick of half averting from any woman who spoke to him, with fugitive glances at her, from time to time. The light of frank liking for him came into Mrs. Gilbert’s eyes when he turned with a sort of hopeless appeal to Gilbert, and then said, “Yes. I shall be very glad to stay.”
“You’re ever so good to be glad,” she said, “but after saving one lady’s life, you couldn’t do less than dine with another. My brother says you and he are to be at West Pekin for a fortnight. That’s very nice; and I hope you’ll come here often. We consider any gentleman a treat; and the only painful thing about having two brilliant young New Yorkers in West Pekin is that perhaps we can never quite live up to our privileges.”
“One of us might go away,” said Easton, taking heart to return this easy banter, but speaking with a quick, embarrassed sigh. “Do you think you could live up to the other?”
Mrs. Gilbert smiled her approval of his daring and of his sigh.
“We will make an effort to deserve you both. Has your friend here told you anything about us?”
“How can you ask it, Susan? Did you ever know me to be guilty of such behavior toward you?” demanded Gilbert.
“No, William, I never did; and I must add that it’s no fault of yours if I didn’t. He means, Mr. Easton, that he’s been generous to a little foible of mine. I do like to lecture upon people when I can get a fresh, uncorrupted listener, I won’t deny it; and I should have been inconsolable if William had exploited us to you, as he certainly would have done if he had liked to expatiate and expound—which he doesn’t; and I believe men never do, however much they like being expatiated and expounded to. Well now, as I’m not going to have any partiality shown by any guests of mine, and as I’m going to introduce you to every lady at dinner recollect, you’ve promised to stay— I’m going to give you a little synopsis of each of them. Mrs. Farrell you’ve already had the pleasure of meeting; once in the berry pasture, yesterday afternoon, and once this morning when you saved her life—yes, her life; I insist upon giving the adventure a decent magnitude, and I will listen to no mannish, minifying scruples—saved her life; and so I will only say that she is young, beautiful, and singularly attractive. The absence of any perceptible husband does not necessarily imply that she is a widow; though in this case it does happen that Mrs. Farrell is a widow. Have I got the logical sequences all right, William? Yes? Well, I’m glad of that; not that I care the least for them, but I like to consult the weakness of a sex that can’t reason without them. As I was saying, she is young, beautiful, and attractive; the fact might not strike you at first, but she is. The only drawback is her extreme unconsciousness. But for all that, if I were a man, I should simply go raving distracted over Mrs. Belle Farrell.”